


Birth and Death; Grey Warden

by NJacobO



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe – Ostagar Outcome, Anderfels, Blight, Character Death(s), Character Foil, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dark, Dark Humor, Dialogue Heavy, Dream Sequences, F/M, Family, Ferelden, Few Sex Scenes, Flashbacks, Free Marches, Friendship, Gen, Grey Wardens, Ho Yay, Male Friendship, Male-Centric, Murder, Nevarra, Nondescript Backgrounds, Orlais, Rivain, Rivalry, Tevinter Imperium, True Companions, War, Woobie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-09-19 11:00:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9437198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NJacobO/pseuds/NJacobO
Summary: “Do you want to die for certain, or do you want a chance to cling to life?”





	1. The Lady of the Lake; Silver and Black

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there. I hate writing these things and like to let the story to speak for itself. I’ll try to make this first one as informative as possible so you won’t need to read a block of unnecessary text at the beginning of each chapter.
> 
>   * I definitely recommend AO3's Reversi skin for reading. You can choose it by scrolling down to the bottom left on any page of this website and clicking "Choose Skin" under the Customization column. Alternatively, you can [click this link, scroll down, and then click the "Use" button](https://archiveofourown.org/skins/929). I have a habit of writing long paragraphs and feel that light text on a dark background puts a little less strain on the eyes. Plus I think it fits the mood a little better. This isn't necessary by any means.
>   * This is the AO3 Version of this story. I use a few simple HTML tags that other sites won't let me use, and don't pull any punches as far as the sex and murder stuff goes. In case the explicit stuff that I'll do in later chapters gets too crazy for you, [I also have a slightly censored version over at FF.net.](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12349708/1/Birth-and-Death-Grey-Warden)
>     * The first few chapters will be identical to the censored version. So, no big deal for now.
>   * There's some stuff in this story that could be deemed sexist/misogynistic/whatever. There's a specific reason I write this way and I don't really mind if I end up offending someone. But since Bioware goes out of their way to cater to a specific audience that wants to avoid these things, take this as a heads-up. If you're particularly weak stomached about this stuff, then this fic might not be for you.
>   * Both of the main character pairings for this story are M/F, with the exception of ho yay. I really doubt this offends anyone, but again, if this isn’t your thing, then you may want to find a different story.
>   * I haven’t read all the Dragon Age material outside of the games. Also I haven’t played all the DLC/Expansions either. I played the three main games, which as of the time of the publish date was Origins, 2, and Inquisition. I don’t remember everything, and I use the wiki to try and fill the gaps in my knowledge. In short, there’ll be some inaccuracies and unfaithfulness to the DA Lore. But this story is set mostly “before” with one big AU divergence moment at Ostagar (+a bunch of Schrödinger’s Cats) instead of “after,” so I should be able to get away with it. Probably.
>   * Comments appreciated, but don’t feel obliged to write them. I can be pretty slow with or without the encouragement.
>   * I don’t own Dragon Age. Dragon Age is the intellectual property of Bioware and Electronic Arts. This story is a fan work and I make no profit off of it.
> 

> 
> I would have skipped all of that if I were you. Enjoy.

 

 

# Prologue

**The Lady of the Lake**

  

* * *

 

_Black._

_And a blurry shape of faraway silver._

_Why was he moving?_

_He didn't know._

_He didn't care._

_He tried to protest. No sound came._

_The black around him had become dark blue._

_And then, pure white emerged to envelope him._

_He felt a warmth he had never felt before. And yet nostalgic, almost as if it had been a part of him all along._

_Her mouth opened. She said something, something like a song. Like a lullaby meant to calm a wailing child._

_And the woman's words, which he would never forget._

_"Do you believe in the Maker?"_

 

 

* * *

 

**Prologue, Part One**

**Silver and Black**

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Year 9:31, Dragon Age._

_Ten months after the death of King Cailan at Ferelden's Victory at Ostagar._

 

Two grey wardens rested in the thick of the Korcari Wilds.

One stood on the ground, clad in helmetless silverite splintmail armor, looking up at the dense mesh of green sprouted from the trees.

The other sat atop the lowest hanging branch of the tree, regaling an anecdote from his past.

"I remember as if it were yesterday…"

A baritone voice, but dignified and refined.

"…we were walking down the sun-glossed streets in Val Royeaux, hand-in-hand. In contrast to Denerim, Orlesian storefronts often have glass windows, a design which allows them both to showcase their best items as a stall owner would without the same uncomplicated accessibility for thieves. One such storefront was Société Jacqueau. Jacqueau—the former personal jeweler of the Valmonts—was the most famous of his craft in all of Orlais. And when my beloved and I passed by Jacqueau's unhumble abode that day, I saw from the corner of my eye a rapid infatuation, and then an equally hasty retreat when she saw the price. I would have done anything to see her smile. I waited briefly before our boat ride to whitely lie about how I left something in the marketplace and then return with one hand behind my back. And as we drifted beneath the thousand-year-old fine arches of the world's grandest city, I softly commanded her to close her eyes and stretch out her hands. I leant forward and whispered closely to her ear as I placed it between her palms. 'Hey, you know those earrings you were looking at? Well, I'm not too good at these things, but…I got you a pear.' She threw it in the water. Must have not liked fruit."

The storyteller paused from atop their vantage at the sound of their sole listener desperately trying to swallow a restrained giggle. He resumed, throwing in a last line to break the floodgate.

"Do you understand the wordplay? Pair, pear…"

Alistair keeled over on the ground in laughter. That was officially the worst joke he had ever heard.

"She did not have the same reaction as you did. Personally I would say it to be a flaw in her sense of humor."

"Ahahaha…" Alistair's laughter receded into a nervous chuckle. "…Um, that didn't actually happen did it? Tell me that didn't happen."

"Haven't I told you before? I never lie." The voice above stated this matter-of-factly, but Alistair shook his head. It was true that his fellow warden was painfully honest, but there was simply too much in that story that was out of character for the narrator telling it.

The warden on the ground looked back up at the figure above. His face was obscured by the shadow of a mesh of leaves and leaves hanging overhead. "Are we close?" Alistair asked, "The Head Scout might cry into her pillow about how lonely she is if we're late again."

"The Head Scout is a dwarf-fucking bitch that needs to learn to shut the fuck up and stick to picking berries instead of demanding to know every pile of mabari shit that we step in."

"…So…ahmmm...are we close?" Alistair didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just repeated himself.

"Indeed. A few hundred meters, if my eyes do not fail me." And his partner responded as if he had said nothing at all.

The man in the tree was always like this. He could speak with great articulation and enunciation, fluently stringing together both the archaic and the prochronistic of the common tongue and vocalizing them in such a way that the words were left resonating in the ear, lingering ominously for moments after his tongue had lay flat. Or he would speak with incredible crudeness, delivering every obscene, blasphemous and offensive word completely calm-faced and unreserved. Occasionally he mixed the two to creative results, but never could he seem to achieve the common middle ground that most intelligent life in this world walked on.

The Grey Warden above stood up on the branch he had been sitting atop. A careful man would slowly dig their fingers into the same crevices they used to climb up to the tree and controllably descend back to the ground.

He jumped.

And landed on his feet, composedly absorbing the impact by bending his knees and then snapping back up straight to his full height, half-a-head taller than Alistair. The black and red of his Sentinel Armor drew a sharp contrast to the worldly nature surrounding its outline.

'Intimidating' was not a strong enough word to be used as a descriptor for this man's appearance.

Standing before Alistair was a ferocious shape of a man mismatched with a pair of ultramarine eyes. The intensely blue hue of his eyes contrasted with everything else about him. They contrasted with the huelessness of dark hair, short, yet rendered shapeless by nature and wilderness. They contrasted with dreadful scars—ranging from a small graze to the nose's bridge by the tip of a dagger, to two parallel marks left by a high dragon's claw. They contrasted with the roughened skin, hardened and unpleasant from a wisdom of the body. And they contrasted with the prominent, protruding bone structure beneath the skin, evidence of what may have once been a striking face before being covered by multiple layers of experience.

Aedan Cousland had a face that was born to command and forged to terrify. The color of his eyes; so innocently bright between constantly narrowed eyelids, more vibrant than the ocean or sky, all seemed a cruel irony by the Maker. The disparity only accentuated a presence that rejected all forms of tenderness.

Cousland slipped a gauntlet, undid from when he had climbed the tree, back on to one of his leathered hands. Alistair caught a glimpse of the dark follicles on the back of Aedan's hand. Underneath his armor the man had hair— _ **everywhere.**_ On his arms, on his legs, on his chest. The only place the Warden-Commander didn't have hair, oddly enough, was his face—even more closely-shaved than Alistair's. Alistair had pointed out the peculiarity of this on more than one occasion, but always got the same answer, some line about how every proper nobleman must always keep a groomed face. No mention of how proper it was to be so frequently covered in darkspawn blood. Or to look like an Alamarri warlord that had survived a hundred trials despite only being a year older than Alistair himself. A bit of hair on the face seemed downright trite all things considered.

If Alistair had to put Cousland's wild appearance into words, he'd say he was a man that was part-warrior, part-noble, and part-youth. And on top of the man parts, he was also part-bear.

"Shall we get going?" The same dignified voice from earlier, belonging to a man who appeared anything but. It would be quite funny, really, if the first impression this man always made wasn't scaring people to death.

"Sure. Can't miss this week's ritual dismemberment, now can we?" Alistair joked with a boldfaced lie. Though, with Cousland around, a would-be bystander could be forgiven for believing it true.

The two walked together, side-by-side. It had taken Alistair quite some time to get used to his new Warden-Commander and the sheer pressure his presence seemed to emit. When he first saw him at Ostagar as the junior member of the Order, he could swear that his dark-haired companion was a vicious murderer that had slaughtered an entire noble house and stole their armor. And that sooner or later he may very well snap and cross blades with a certain former Templar.

Of course now that they had a contract, one that Aedan wouldn't disobey unless he fundamentally went against one of his most stubbornly-held ideals, there was no threat of that at all. Instead, they were inseparable companions. Against Alistair's will. Honestly, he wasn't quite sure which was worse.

They had no reason to fight, despite being opposites. So they simply walked together.

And walked together.

There was no hum of cicadas or singing of birds in the wilds during a Blight. No trampling of vegetation by a tangle of fennecs. Just the clank of armored footsteps in the middle of a lifeless wilds, of two men that walked together.

And walked together…

And were still walking…

" _It's been ten minutes now_ " Alistair thought.

And not talking…

" _Should I say something…?_ "

Alistair got a foot caught under a tree root, stumbled for a bit, but didn't trip. Being deathly quiet while they could very well be walking to their actual death did not help relieve tension.

"Soooooo…" Alistair tried to say something, but trailed off. Inseparable companionship aside, a bloodthirsty noble was a bit difficult to make small talk with. "How's…"

Cousland stopped and shot his gaze over Alistair's shoulder with a stony face. Alistair didn't really think about what he was going to talk about, so he dragged on his words.

"How's…um…hoooww's—"

" **Down!** "

The younger warden froze up in shock at the sight of Aedan's frozen expression suddenly exploding into a yell. He felt a hand press hard against his breastplate as he was pushed to the ground by his Warden-Commander.

He heard a scream. But this time, it was not from a bloodthirsty noble.

It was from something with a bloodlust that no living man could match.

Lying on his stomach, Alistair turned his head to to see Cousland standing with Vigilance, both hands on the hilt and the edge pointing towards Alistair bloodied.

And in front of Cousland was a darkspawn, a hurlock that had been bisected from shoulder to hip; its armor, flesh, and bone all cleanly and uniformly cut with no signs of stopping or difference in speed as the blade had passed through it. It was as if Vigilance had cut through it like a knife through velvet.

Sometimes, the darkspawn were quiet. Cousland placed Vigilance back in its sheath.

Usually, Alistair could sense darkspawn coming from far enough away that he could steel himself and draw his sword. But when surrounded by so many, as they undoubtedly were right now, all he could rely on were the five senses he was born with. Well, four. Everything smelled rather uniformly awful for the moment.

Of course, that same downside was what allowed them to venture this far into the wilds without the entire horde descending upon them. Darkspawn sensed grey wardens the same way grey wardens sensed darkspawn. And if they were surrounded by tens of thousands of their own kind, it would be rather difficult for them to sense two lone wardens, miles away from their camp. The only reason that hurlock had seen him was through the simple use of its eyes.

The standing warden turned back to the one flat on the ground. Warm blood and black ichor had splattered over Cousland's face and armor. It did not seem to bother him. "Are you alright?"

"Well, I'm not quite you, but I'm fine." Alistair grabbed Cousland hand and pushed his own against the ground as to get himself back on his feet. Unlike his companion, none of the carnage from the hurlock's body had touched him. "Looks like I owe you my life for…oh, the fifth time this month now? You really ought to think about how much you could charge."

"You owe me nothing. It's a Teyrn's duty to protect his King." Cousland smiled with a closed mouth, contorting the two dragonclaw scars that reached from the upper-left of his forehead to the lower-right of his jaw. Despite the gore, and despite never doing so in public, it was an expression he was using now. As if being covered in blood were simply his most comfortable state.

"Please. I'm the bastard of a star-struck maid and a man who couldn't keep to himself. Don't call me a King." Alistair shook his head. He couldn't exactly take back the contract they had made at this point. Didn't mean he had to like it.

But, he owed this man much. He didn't know where he'd be today if Cousland wasn't there to pick him back up after Duncan died.

"Thank you." Alistair continued, serious this time. "I don't know how many times I would've died now if it weren't for you."

"Why are you thanking me? As I said, it's a Teyrn's duty to protect his King." In a reversal of roles, Cousland looked at him with curiosity, unable to comprehend what was being said.

Alistair rubbed his scalp and looked up. "…Well, I take that back. I would've died exactly one time, now that I think about it."

"This aside, earlier you kept saying 'How'?" Aedan Cousland brought up Alistair's meandering from before the Hurlock appeared.

"Right, I was...erm—"

"You were asking about Arl Rendon 'Howe', correct?" Cousland interrupted before Alistair could make something up.

“Yes! About…him…why not?"

"You wish to know of my victory over the usurper Howe and the reclamation of my ancestral birthright by that pathetic traitor?" The Warden said this without and irony or slack in tone, as if he were presenting a story before a large gathering in front of Denerim's royal palace. Both of them had taken separate leaves of absence from Ostagar since the last battle with the Darkspawn. Alistair had traveled to Redcliffe and, unsuccessfully, tried to cure Arl Eamon's sickness. And Cousland had taken what remained of his missing brother's forces north to retake Highever and subjugate Amaranthine, returning with his rather unusual sword and armor afterwards.

“Not really, but let’s go with that” Alistair muttered under his breath.

Cousland did not hear him. "There isn't much to tell. Howe's men didn't put up much of a fight outside the castle, and by the time I'd scaled the walls the former Arl was already on his hands and knees, begging for mercy."

"Did he get it?"

"Of course not. I had Rendon Howe hung, drawn, and quartered. I wanted his skull as a keepsake too, but my seneschal had the head dipped in tar and mounted on top of a spike above Amaranthine's main gate instead. A shame."

"Hung, drawn, quartered?" Alistair had heard of being hung, but the "drawn and quartered" part was new.

"It's an old Fereldan execution method reserved for high treason, such as regicide. A large crowd is gathered as we hang someone with a short rope so their neck doesn't accidentally snap when the platform opens up underneath them. Ideally with a noose loose enough to allow just enough air for a long suffocation. Roughly a minute before they are to die, the rope is shot with a bow or otherwise severed. They are then dragged by the crowd onto the drawing table while they gasp for breath, where their midsection is cut open and their innards dragged out to be burnt before their eyes. If they are still alive, as Howe was, they are then castrated and emasculated, this flesh also being burnt in front of them. Death arrives almost immediately afterwards from bleeding, so the limbs and head are quickly severed while they can still…Alistair? Are you unwell?"

Alistair liked to consider himself as strong-stomached as any true Fereldan man.

This, however, was a bit much.

"Oh no, I'm fine. Just wondering what's for dinner." Alistair lied.

"Really?" Cousland pressed a hand to his chin. A bit of the blood smeared against his face. "If you don't mind eating without a campfire, I could catch some raw fish on the way back. If you're willing to wait until we get back to Ostagar, I could also prepare red meat, cooked rare…are you certain you're alright?"

"Uuuuuuugg." Alistair felt a bit of bile in the back of his throat. A spectacular backfire.

Aedan's face became stern and concerned. "You don't seem fine, here, stand still."

Cousland's couldn't feel temperature through his gauntlets, so he placed an armored hand against the back of Alistair's head and used it to anchor his head in place as he pressed their foreheads together. Their faces came near, with the close-eyed, serious face of Aedan's hovering inches away from his.

It was a little too intimate for Alistair's tastes.

"Ple…please don't get so close to me like that." Alistair jerked himself free of the slightly older warden's hold.

Personal space was as much a foreign concept to Aedan Cousland as human decency and common sense were.

"Hm, you don't feel hot." Aedan reeled back his head and placed his hand to his mouth, pointedly ignoring his companion's discomfort. "Is it something you ate at Ostagar before we left? A rotted tomato, perhaps?"

"No I—I'm fine. Just don't talk about food. Please." Alistair always managed to surprise himself with how much his conversations with this man threw him off-balance.

"If you say so." Cousland said, completely ignorant of the situation.

Alistair and Cousland resumed walking. This time, with a comfortable silence.

The trees had grown thinner since their last rest. Before they were thick enough that they had to constantly step from root to root, slipping between the trunks and squeezing their armor past the ever-narrowing openings. Now they were close enough to the epicenter that the advanced stages of the Blight could be seen. Moisture had dried out from the ground, withering away the small plants and turning the soil loose and dry. The small animals had all died out, and the larger ones had become blighted, leaving to join the main horde.

If he were to travel a few miles northwest, to the Hinterlands. There would be plenty of unblighted animals and vegetation. Quite a few of which that would be willing to kill him. In that way, it wasn't quite different from where he was at now.

Beasts in the Hinterlands, and all of Thedas for that matter, killed humans for a variety of reasons. Often times as a slight for entering their territory or for perceived threat to their young. Occasionally even for food.

Darkspawn ate human flesh too. But they didn't need sustenance, unlike beasts. The magical essence of the taint sustained them, allowing them to live indefinitely until slain. So why did they eat…? Who knows?

Alistair looked up to the sky. Despite all of the evidence of a Blight on the ground, the sky was completely cloudless. He wasn't able to see it earlier with the layers of leaves blotting out the Sun. Now the branches had become bare, the trees simple husks in a permanent winter.

…Alistair couldn't stand how lifeless it could be during a Blight.

When Duncan recruited him, what he feared most about a Blight was what it would feel like when he was fighting Darkspawn. He worried that he'd lose his nerves and forget to swing his sword. That he'd face something that couldn't be beaten and die without his efforts meaning anything.

Now—what he feared the most about a Blight was not when he was fighting the Darkspawn, but when there were none to be seen.

It is said that the sight where Dumat was killed used to be a lush beauty, a green, never-ending forest that most of the world's fruit trees originated from. After the First Blight, it became a grey wasteland; less than a desert, less than a battlefield. No shrub or insect survived in the Silent Plains, no fleeting prey or chasing predators. It simply became nothing, a void of life.

The Blight was unnatural. It wasn't just evil. Greedy merchants that rose food prices during a famine were evil. Cutthroats in the Carta that killed and extorted unarmed men were evil. Sadistic templars that relentlessly chased self-contained magi were evil. Deranged maleficarum that summoned demons into the world were evil.

What was The Blight? The Blight wasn't invisible. The Blight had a face, and it was not an emotionless one. In a way, the stray Hurlock that just got sliced in half was downright jovial that it had someone to fight, even when it had no hope of winning.

" _But…why?_ " Alistair wondered.

All evils of the world had a purpose. Gold, power, pleasure, survival, twisted joy. And the apex of all evils, the evil which threatened to erase all others along with the good, had no apparent goal. The Blight killed. The Blight corrupted. Those were its means, and those were its ends.

"Hey Aedan?" Alistair looked up with a bit of an ache in his neck. He never could quite get used to someone being taller than him.

"Mmm?" Aedan's inquisitive noise resembled a lion's growl.

"What do you think our chances are in the upcoming battle?"

"That will depend entirely on what we discover here today. However…" Aedan Cousland trailed off.

"'However' what?"

"…However, something is wrong." Cousland's voice snapped back to its full audacity after the brief pause. "Historically Darkspawn have never been on the defensive during a Blight."

"Maybe we killed most of them? Like the Siege of Hossberg, in the Fourth Blight." Alistair recalled a tidbit of knowledge from some of his time spent reading history texts in the monastery.

"Darkspawn do not retreat. Even after their losses in Anderfels they still pressed their advance west from their strongholds in Antiva." Cousland looked to his side, the one not flanked by another Warden. Alistair noticed this and scanned over to his left in turn, looking for more Darkspawn that they couldn't sense. "When Loghain led the charge after we lit the Tower of Ishal, we were able to win that day because of the pincer formation we formed between his army and the remnants that were under the command of Calian and the Grey Wardens before they died." Cousland spoke while the two moved and kept a watchful eye. "However, the strategy that he used shouldn't have worked. When Loghain charged, there were still Darkspawn pouring out of the wilds. Judging by the numbers I saw while we were crossing the bridge, they should've easily outnumbered us four-to-one and trapped Loghain's reinforcements in a reverse double envelopment. But the horde that was pouring out of the woods simply turned tail and retreated. And all throughout history they've never just gone back underground, biding their time for nearly a year while only sending out small parties to skirmish."

In a way, it was a rather effective strategy. The Darkspawn's game of disengagement had allowed the Grey Wardens to gather all of their allies from the treatises, save the magi, and raise levies from all of the lords that were slow to mobilize the first time. And they had done entirely nothing with them since then. The Bannorn was growing restless, and the freeholders that were mobilized had gone an entire year without attending to their farms. Orzammar needed their warrior caste back to deal with the succession crisis, the Dalish were jumpy around the race that had subjugated them many times over, and the Templars had their own problems with Ferelden's circle from what they had heard.

Cousland continued. "When Loghain first heard about the Blight, he absolutely hated the idea of moving the King's army to Ostagar and engaging the Darkspawn in battle on an open field. He wanted to fight a war of attrition and utilize skirmishing tactics like he did against Orlais. The only reason he didn't was because of Cailan. Now Cailan's dead and he's gotten exactly what he wanted, only to find out that the Darkspawn don't need to eat or deal with petty disputes back home, and that the Korcari Wilds are unideal for any kind of coordinated offensive. Great strategist, my ass."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Alistair shrugged his shoulders while maintaining his watch for darkspawn. "He's been keeping a lid on the pot this whole time, hasn't he?"

Cousland moved his gaze away from the forest and shifted it back at Alistair. "You don't feel any resentment towards Loghain for allowing Duncan and your brother to die?"

"Why should I?" Alistair cast a sidelong glance. Duncan's death had cut a particular hole in him, one that pained him when he couldn't move and never seemed to heal. "He still ordered the charge at the end that trapped the main darkspawn force and stopped them. It was my fault for slowing you down when we were trying to light the Tower of Ishal."

"What if I were to tell you that it was irrelevant whether or not we lit the Tower of Ishal? That in actuality, Loghain had been planning to usurp the throne for his daughter and use us as scapegoats up until the very last moment when he had a change of heart and made an emotional decision?" Cousland made an outrageous declaration.

"I'd say you've read too many novels." Alistair said, dismissively. In his mind, he had no reason to blame Loghain. Instead, he blamed himself.

"You can blame Rendon Howe for putting the idea in my head while he was pleading for his life. But Alistair—" Cousland stepped forward to block his fellow Warden's path and formidably stare directly in his eyes. "What happened that day was not your fault. If you have to blame someone, blame Loghain. And if you cannot blame him, blame the Darkspawn. Blame the portrait of the world for its inherent deficit of color. Blame the eternal black that can be pushed from one place to another but never repainted. The only thing you killed that day were Darkspawn. Don't fool yourself into thinking you aren't a good man."

Alistair didn't quite comprehend the farfetched metaphors that his companion gave, but very easily understood the seriousness in his blue-eyed gaze. So he timidly nodded his head, trying to give the impression that he neither fully understood nor disagreed.

It was in that moment, however, that Alistair's worries about himself dissipated when he saw something on the edge of Cousland's form and in between two dead trees.

Smoke, rising from something below the ground.

"Aedan." Alistair's eyes became wide with realization. "Is that…?"

Cousland twisted his back and looked over his shoulder, his eyes piercing past the bark. He tilted his forehead forward, as if staring down an enemy commander at the other end of an open plain. "It is." A concentrated voice.

Alistair started off towards the source of the smoke, before feeling his torso run into what felt like a solid object. He looked down, and saw Aedan's hand blocking his path.

"I'll go first. You stay behind." Cousland ordered.

"No, I'll go first. You're the Commander of the Grey. It's my duty to protect you." Alistair replied.

"It's a Teyrn's duty to protect his King" Cousland countered.

"Look, my whole feelings on the 'King' thing aside, let's say I am what you keep calling me. Doesn't that mean you have to listen to what I say?"

"I'm more than willing to listen to your orders. Does this mean your regency is at an end?"

Alistair grit his teeth. Cousland was more than willing to allow Alistair take control of their group at any time. But saying "yes" would essentially mean two things. For one, Alistair would have to give in and call himself a king. And two, it would mean he would have to be the leader from now on. Both of which being incredibly unattractive ideas to him.

And someone who thought that the solution may be to say "yes" and then renege on the answer later was someone who did not know Aedan Cousland. There was no arguing with this man. Once given an order, he would insist on following Alistair's words down to the letter ad infinitum. A monarchy—imaginary or not—doesn't exactly close and reopen shop every Tuesday, after all.

The reality was that for Alistair, it was much easier to just to put up with Aedan's peculiar nature for the time being and to let him go on and on about how the unacknowledged junior warden that did not want the crown was somehow a 'king'. Even though Cousland was the Warden-Commander. Even though Cousland was the one that never took "no" for an answer.

At least that way Alistair would not have to be responsible for someone else's life again.

"…Fine, you win. I'll stand over here like a good little warden."

Cousland nodded his head in acknowledgement, as if he had been given the order instead of giving it.

He walked towards the source of the smoke. The trees ended at a few paces ahead of where the two stopped, the ground becoming darkened ash that bore no remainder of life. Forty more paces, and the ground itself dropped off, suddenly coming to an end as if it were the edge of a steep cliff. The Warden-Commander approached that end, first with bent knees, then with a crawl. When he was close enough to see over the edge, he paused, and la

"What do you see?" Alistair asked from the edge of the trees.

"The usual; hurlocks, genlocks, ogres, ten-titties…"

"Wait," Alistair's brow furrowed for a moment "ten—um, what?"

"Broodmothers."

"Riiiight. Those." Alistair nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "So, about the Archdemon…"

"Can't see him from for sure, but I feel a certain premonition at the sight. Look for yourself, seems safe enough for now."

Alistair mimicked Aedan's movements and came to a prone position alongside him.

A great chasm expanded before Alistair's eyes and stretched his depth-of-field as far as it could go.

A crater, as if a great mass had fallen from the sky as opposed to erupting from the ground. The center produced the smoke and glowed an overpowering shade of red, the hue of the Deep Roads. The middle where the Darkspawn first broke through to the surface was obscured by the color, much as a fog in the Fallow Mire would. Thousands of minor darkspawn clung to the walls like bees wintering in a hive, the closest no more than ten meters away.

"Aedan."

"Yes?"

"One of us doesn't know what safe means" Alistair singsonged, dragging out the vowels in 'means.' He wasn't scared, but he was exasperated.

"It's safe." Cousland replied with innocent eyes. Or at least as innocent as he could make them. "Look there, where the darkspawn are thickest. Does it evoke a particular feeling when you do?"

Alistair squinted his eyes, looking towards the bottom where the darkspawn clung shoulder-to-shoulder and the intensity of the red overcame the air, but couldn't find 'feeling' Cousland spoke of for the life of him. "No, it doesn't. Give me a hint."

"Dreams."

"Dreams?"

"Dreams about the Archdemon. This has the same background as our dreams, does it not?" Cousland asked.

Alistair took a moment to peer at the sight, combing over every detail and trying to jog his memory for some type of revelation.

In the end, it didn't work.

"…I don't think so." Alistair answered. He had always dreamt about the Archdemon flying over the wilds or over a tundra. A giant crater was never a part of it.

"Really? Well, perhaps there is another way..." Aedan's hand extended to his unflanked side and grabbed something in the grass. Alistair couldn't quite see what it was. "Alistair, what do you think the radius of this crater is?"

"Oh, I don't know…long?"

"I'm going to approximate it at one-and-three-quarter kilometers." Cousland snapped his head up at the trees and sky, trying to judge the sway of branches for wind. "Which means if I throw it at pi over three…no, three pi over ten…"

"…Pie…?"

Aedan ignored Alistair's inquisitiveness and continued mulling to himself, muttering uncharacteristically quiet words before finally settling on one term in particular. "Eighty-one pi over two-hundred fifty. Does that sound right?"

"You lost me at the pie part."

"Right. Sorry, sometimes I get carried away." Aedan reeled back his arm.

"' _Sometimes'?_ "

And threw the rock he had picked up from the grass.

Drawing a wide-arcing parabola, it was carried by an updraft of wind, before finally beginning to fall when it was a dot on the horizon.

They followed that faraway dot with their eyes until it fell towards the center of the red-grey fog, disappearing from view.

A second passed. Just a single second, of both of them frozen in place in complete silence.

What followed was a roar. A roar that would've shook the trees with the sound of birds and other potential prey fleeing, had they not all ceased to be from the Blight.

A bloodcurdling, distant roar, belonging to something tremendous and more terrifying than anything else he had ever seen. A nightmare that had crossed from the realm of dreams into reality. A monstrosity, a corrupted remnant from a God belonging to history, brought forth into the present from the endless march of black.

And then…

…Silence.

Alistair slowly, deliberately moved his head towards the man standing next to him. By the time the dark-haired Warden came into view, he was standing completely still with his arms folded and eyes closed, as if contemplating something.

"…Did you just throw a rock at the Archdemon?" His eyes were wide with shock. _"Does the word 'insane' mean anything to you?"_

"You thought it was the Archdemon too?" Cousland opened his eyes, replying in a nonchalant manner. "It appears our work here is finished, then."

"…"

"Alistair?"

"MHM! YES, THAT'S RIGHT." Alistair jumped up and jaggedly spoke spoke upbeat words with the same kind of energy that an insomniac man gets when he's been awake long enough to forget he's tired. "Oh, but—MMMMmmmmm." Alistair pursed his lips and vigorously shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe we should throw a bigger rock?" He gave a wild smile, no long caring about trying to be discreet near what may as well be a million Darkspawn.

Cousland dropped his arms to his sides. "Very well. We passed by a boulder on the way here. Give me a short while, I will roll it down to the center." He said, completely deadpan.

"Wahahahaha!" Alistair forced laughter out of his stomach. His stomach hurt. "You said that perfectly! Almost like...like..."

" _W-wait._ " Alistair thought to himself. Cousland never lied and only told jokes that weren't funny. So when he said he would bring over a giant boulder—which should be impossible for anyone to move—except him—and use it to alert the entire darkspawn horde that they were there, he meant it.

Alistair dropped back down and curled into a ball, the strings of his bravado cut.

"I'm sorry, I was trying to be manly. Please don't bully me again or else I'll cry." Alistair whimpered, hugging his legs to his knees and rocking back and forth.

He was scared after all. Just not of any Darkspawn or Archdemon. The Final Boss had been right next to him all along.

"My apologies. It wasn't my intention to scare you." Cousland replied. It was an earnest reply. From a terrible, terrible man.

"I know. You're just naturally-talented." Alistair drolly stated as he felt some of the tension in his body loosen. Why was he doomed to to be the only person in the world Aedan Cousland could talk to? "So, we know the Archdemon's here and not there with the big, angry army that just so happened to pop up south of Ostagar last month. What do we do now?"

"Well, foremost will be checking in on the most Junior member of the Order, who should be collecting darkspawn blood with the new recruits we picked out. He'll also have the report on all on the darkspawn movements near those witches' tent, so we'll have to exchange reports with both him and… _ **her.**_ " Cousland spoke with a level of contempt that could've made Alistair swore that the Archdemon was back at camp instead of here.

"Who, the head scout?" Alistair sat up with one hand on a raised knee, trying to stay neutral.

"Yes, that devil of a Loghain-loyalist cockpleasing woman that calls herself the head scout. She's been scouting out the logistics of the main force. The whore." Cousland spat. Why this made the woman in question a 'whore', precisely, was anyone's guess. "In addition to her, the large one should bring us up to date about the camp and if the three recruits have their darkspawn blood yet. Or their heads for that matter." The older warden placed a closed fist to his face and digging the thumb into his cheek. "Afterwards we'll need to speak with Loghain, if the greasy old bastard's willing to listen, and finalize the battle plan. After that, it'll just be The Joining and waiting for Darkspawn to attack."

"Back to camp then?" Alistair stood up.

"Of course." Cousland turned his back to the mass of Darkspawn and set off back to the wilds. "We must gather our party before venturing forth."

Alistair laughed, for a moment forgetting everything about their mission, the darkspawn, the archdemon, The Blight and every evil that seemed to surround him like a candle at midnight.

Aedan stopped in his tracks, standing underneath the shadow of the nearby trees. He looked back over his shoulder at the lighter-haired warden, dumbfounded. "What…? Was it something I said?" A rare bit of uncertainty from a man usually so direct and imposing.

"Oh, it's nothing." Alistair folded his arms and looked up towards his forehead, as if he were in on some joke that only he understood. The silver of his splintmail armor shone brilliantly underneath the high sun, a reminder that it was still only midday.

He stepped into the shade of dead trees that Aedan was under. Different colors always seemed to meld a little bit better with each other in the dark.

Alistair placed himself back at his comrade's side. "Come on, my serious evil friend. Let's go save the world."

They had a long, long journey ahead.


	2. Paladin, Warrior, Wizard, Thief

**Prologue, Part Two**

**Paladin, Warrior, Wizard, Thief**

* * *

_Year 9:30, Dragon Age._

_The morning after Ferelden's Fourth Victory at Ostagar._

 

A thousand bodies lay in the valley where the Darkspawn charged. Thousands more surrounded them.

More than half were blighted, but several were human along with an occasional elf.

A sole living man sat on his knees at the site of where the king's army had fallen. Earlier he hadn't been able to stop moving, but now that he had time, it felt so easy to stay still.

When he and Aedan had fought their way out of the Tower of Ishal, he was in a daze. He remembered shouting something, running across the entire camp trying to find someone who knew. Every time he asked either he was ignored or they didn't know.

On the ground before him was a body. The deceased was wearing a white chestplate with a dark sash, riveted lames at the upper arms with spaulders at the shoulders, white cloth covering the sides of the legs, a black satchel secured at the hip.

There was supposed to be only one man in the all of Ostagar's forces that had that.

Upon finding it, he searched the emptiness underneath the bridge. He searched the human bodies where the darkspawn had pressed their advance. He searched at the end of the valley where Loghain had led his charge against the Darkspawn and engaged in a massive melee on their rear flank. He searched at the edge of the wilds where only the darkspawn corpses populated the ground, most of them on their front from falling during their retreat.

But in the end he came back to where he searched first, to the middle where the King's army had lost nine of every ten men. Where Cailan and all of the Grey Wardens were, save two. A dead ogre lay nearby. Back to the corpse with the white chestplate.

The body almost resembled the shape of a man. Everything surrounding the legs and chest was intact.

But above the neck…

Alistair had let himself be in doubt because there was nothing there.

A man approached him from behind.

"I found Duncan's body." Alistair's head was drooped. His neck didn't feel sore anymore from being bent.

"I see." Aedan's voice was flat.

"His face…an axe…split…everywhere…here…there…" Alistair brought his own hands into the view of his still eyes. "I kept trying to put the pieces back together…but they wouldn't stick…"

A lone tear fell out of the corner of his eye and dragged itself down an already dried up trail. It felt as if he were wringing out his own soul.

Alistair felt a trembling of the lips, a tightness in the throat. And yet an unassailable need to let a single word out.

"W…hy…"

Why did Duncan leave him behind?

"I might've been able to do something…maybe I could have…"

"Perhaps." Cousland spoke tersely, with little respect for the dead. He had not known Duncan for more than a few weeks.

Perhaps if Alistair were on the battlefield, he might've saved Duncan.

Perhaps they would've both died instead.

Perhaps nothing would change at all.

The past does not change, and the dead do not come back to life. It was an unchanging truth of a reality that gripping could sometimes feel as severe as a white hot iron. Only the mad and the raving reject that truth.

The mad, the raving, and the weak.

"Why didn't you run ahead?! You could've killed the Ogre and lit the tower by yourself! You could've left me behind!"

"I could have" Cousland said matter-of-factly. "But then you would have died."

"Who cares?!" Alistair's head bowed back towards the ground. "Who cares if I die? How many people have I saved?!—What am I…? I'm no grey warden…I'm too weak to be a templar…I couldn't be a prince…"

Cousland glanced over at the dead king near Duncan's body. There was a resemblance.

He had always suspected, but at this point it was all but true.

"What is my life even worth…what does the Maker want from me?! Why did he even let me be born if what I do doesn't even mean anything…?"

"Alistair."

"I don't know—"

"Your father was King Maric, wasn't he?"

Alistair paused. He was not crying freely from his ducts, but instead slowly trickling out what was left. "…Yeah, that's right…"

Alistair didn't care for his father. Maric Theirin was a hero that liberated that slew Meghren in single combat and gave Fereldans their country back. He was also infidelious, and a man that abandoned him and his mother for the sake of appearances.

"…What's it matter?"

"Cailan is dead. As the next of the Theirin blood, that makes you King."

"Please…I'm not a King."

"It has little to do with what you want. You were his last of kin, and thus the sole possible inheritor."

"Who cares?!" Alistair's hands clenched and his arms trembled against the weight of his last name. He wasn't yelling at Cousland anymore, but the world.

A father was a father, and a son was a son. He wasn't responsible for the deeds of King Maric. Was Alistair inherently superior, his life worth more than others', simply because he was born to a man that had more? A man that he never knew?

"It is simply how it must be." He walked from Alistair's side to his front, keeping his back towards him. "The people are too simple to rule themselves, too naive to choose who shall do it for them. So one greater than they are must shepherd them. If not you, then it would simply be someone else."

"Then let someone else be it! How am I superior? What makes my life so worth living when everyone else has to die?!"

A moment of silence. Cousland kept his back towards Alistair, before reciting something they had both heard many times before.

"All men are the Work of our Maker's Hands.  
From the lowest slaves.  
To the highest kings."

Canticle of Transfigurations, Verse 1:3. The noble continued, speaking without pause.

"You asked why the Maker let you be born, and about how you are superior." He turned, trying to meet his downcast comrade and would-be liege in the eye. "Not all men are born equal by the Maker's hand. Some are be born into the world without the eyes to see it. Some are born without the legs to walk upon it, or the hands to feel it. If the Maker is such an egalitarian, then riddle me this. Why did he allow mages to be born at all when he doomed them to a life of being locked up?"

"That's—" Alistair's words faltered. He knew there was a verse somewhere in the Chant of Light that could be interpreted as explaining this, but he never particularly paid attention to the lectures and sermons the Revered Mother gave in the abbey. "—not their choice, is it? And even if they are missing something or born a little different…that doesn't mean they don't have hopes and dreams, right? It doesn't mean they can't be happy or that they don't mean something to someone else."

"Then what of those born without a heart? Those who cannot feel happiness and can only derive pleasure from the suffering of others? Those doomed to hear voices when there are none, and are inevitably driven to violence from madness? Those who insist on hurting themselves, and only drag others into their pain when offered a helping hand?"

"...No one's really born that way, are they?" Alistair said with uncertainty. It wasn't entirely accurate to his beliefs, but right now he wasn't in the right mindset to give anything other than base answers. "And if something made them that way, they can be changed back."

"…Then what of the darkspawn? They are living things, are they not? Should they be offered a chance to change?"

The skin surrounding Alistair's eyes tightened. He was beginning to understand what Cousland was getting at, but lacked a clear answer to his question nonetheless. "What are you trying to say?"

"I suppose I am asking the ages-old question of where man must draw the line between good and evil. Most Thedosians passively accept the formlessness of good and evil as a plain concept despite that both are defined solely by examples. And they typically do not reconsider unless faced with outside stimuli that force them to. Much in the same way that they do not question whether a silver is really worth three loaves of bread when all currency has no practical use outside of the meaning the ones exchanging them give it. Or if two plus two equals four despite the Maker never throwing the numbers down from the sky and establishing their absolute values. Or if that Maker is even a straightforwardly good god at all, and whether his ascension of Andraste was a genuine act of fatherly kindness or the muse of an eccentric in line with the creation of beings that insist on killing each other. Those of the docile flock do not question themselves about the preordained notions they have of these concepts, because replacing their accepted truths of the world with a series of unanswerable questions could drive them mad with fear of the unknown."

Aedan looked up at the morning sky. "A kingship is of the same category. Are there other ways to lead than by the crown? Is the method of only placing that crown atop the head of one descended from the kingdom's founder possibly incorrect? Perhaps. But the commoners have crops to harvest and children to raise, and as of now they also have a darkspawn horde to fight. Philosophical 'what ifs' are not their concern."

Cousland brought his head back down. "Those people need you, Alistair. Whether you want them to or not."

"I won't."

"—!" Cousland made a shocked noise at Alistair's answer. It was no small task to startle him.

"I won't. I won't."

Alistair repeated the words. He had looked directly at the weight of his name, and he had denied it. If he were going to defend Ferelden from the darkspawn, he would do so for his reasons, and his alone.

"I won't. I won't. I won't. I won't. I won't. I won't..."

Alistair mechanically repeated himself like a tired, stubborn child. He was not even sure what he was saying "will not" to. His royal bastardry turning him into a convenient backup heir, the reality of the world. They blended together into a raw emotion that made him feel as if he were running inside his own body.

And when he was too tired to say it; sapped of rest, tears, and hope, he repeated it in his mind. Where only he could hear himself:

" _IWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon'tIWon't—_ "

Alistair was cut off as he heard Aedan's sword ring from its sheath. His first thought was that The Warden was disgusted with his pitiful answer and was going to take his head.

"If you will not be King—"

But when he looked up, he saw the ancestral sword of the Couslands buried in the ground.

"—then at the very least, let me be your vassal."

Cousland was not looking at Alistair. He was looking directly at the grass, kneeling and flattening his chest against knee so nothing save the hands holding the sword would rise above a sitting man hanging his head:

"From this moment to my dying breath, I hereby swear that I will defend you with all of my might. I shall defeat any enemy that strikes you or that you wish to strike. I will provide you with counsel whenever you need it. I will follow your rule when no one else will. And if you will not rule, then I will be your regent and safeguard your throne until you are ready. Upon my honor as a Cousland and as a Fereldan; I hereby promise you my sword and that of any lineage that I may bring into this world. From this day forth, we shall serve you. We shall forever serve your children, and their children for as long as they hold your blood and there is a Ferelden to defend."

Cousland rose his head. His ultramarine eyes glowed with determination:

"My King…"

"Don't call me a king...please..."

"Your Majesty…"

Alistair chuckled, weakly, but enough to momentarily change the shape of his face. He stood up, one leg at a time, as if he were rebounding himself off of the small laugh in his stomach. "Alistair. Just…Alistair."

"Alistair." Aedan Cousland raised his torso from his knee. "Will you accept my fealty?"

Alistair opened his mouth to say no. But he saw something. Something from beyond his lifetime.

Four Ages ago, King Calenhad had defeated Teyrna Elethea Cousland on the field of battle and forced her on one knee so she would submit.

The same oath she said then was being repeated now. The only difference was that instead of being forced to submit, the Cousland was forcing the Theirin to rule.

He couldn't beat Cousland at anything. Not with swords, not with wits, and not with will.

And thus, even when he tried to reject to his heritage as he had so many times before, an entirely different answer came out of his mouth.

"Yes."

And a contract was formed.

 

…

……

 

Alistair stood atop the bridge connecting the Tower of Ishal to Ostagar, leaning against an unbroken section of the supports.

He was looking down at where the last large battle with the Darkspawn had been. Most of the bodies had been dragged to mass graves, leaving only a few skeletons as evidence of any struggle.

" _Huh, that happened almost a year ago now._ "

Since then Anora had declared herself Queen Regnant of Ferelden and Loghain the Regent. Aedan Cousland was appointed Warden-Commander of Ferelden, and had rebuilt the Grey Wardens in Ferelden under a rule of absolute obedience to himself.

And yet Cousland always insisted that Alistair was king and that he was his vassal. It really didn't make any sense. Alistair had no desire to be king. He didn't even want to be a leader of his fellow wardens.

What he wanted…he wasn't quite sure. Ending the Blight seemed like a nice a start, so why not start there?

An unseasonably cold wind blew north against his face. It was the end of the month of Solace. Soon the month of August would begin and bring with it All Soul's Day, the beginning of autumn in Thedas. The snow would return to Ostagar, and whatever evidence of carnage that occurred at Ostagar would be blanketed just as before.

"Alistair."

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice approaching from the west. A tall, grey-skinned figure wearing an apprentice's robes had joined him on the bridge. There were a couple dozen Qunari mercenaries at Ostagar. One of which had conscripted into the Wardens and nonchalantly agreed when told their fate a few weeks ago.

Kaaras Adaar was the type of mage that most would think was a tranquil up until he they asked him if he was. And he was the type of Vashoth that most would mistake for a stoic Qunari Warrior if it wasn't for the fact that he was a hornless mage.

Tall, and yet lacking the proportionally broad shoulders so typical of his species, Adaar was an exceptionally rare case of an exceptionally rare race in Southern Thedas. Lacking in horns from birth due to a condition that would've doubly set him apart alongside his gift of magic in his parents' homeland, Adaar instead had a short growth of slate grey hair covering a charcoal-colored scalp. The rest of his skin was a dim grey, darker than most of his kind, albeit without any hint of brown. And instead of the rigidity or permanent-seeming scowl that so many Qunari seemed to have, Kaaras had a smooth and completely blank face.

From a distance, one might mistake him for a two meter high human. Up close, a particularly uneducated sort might think him to be a freakishly tall lanky human with a skin condition and pointy ears.

It did not help that, in addition to everything else about his appearance, he possessed a trait that set him apart from the usual image of the Tal-Vashoth mercenary that had endured years of hardship before escaping home or the grizzled Beresaad sent to show his strength to those outside Qunari lands: he was quite young.

 **Too** young, in fact, seeing that the age of sixteen made him both five years younger than Alistair himself and two years younger than the age limit for conscription in most kingdoms.

"Hey Adaar. What have you been up to?"

"Autopsies." The Qunari didn't elaborate.

"…Sooooo, need something?"

"The Warden-Commander." Adaar spoke three words and then stopped, as if he expected Alistair to know what he wanted from those alone.

"…And? What about him?"

"Another duel."

"…Go on."

"You need to be there."

"I do…? Oh, tell Aedan 'thumbs up' like usual."

"I did."

"And they still need me to be there?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Alistair spoke with a grin. "That classic Qunari stoicism I keep hearing about."

"Has nothing to do with me being a Qunari." Adaar spoke with his arms crossed. "I'm just a moody teenager."

Moody teenagers usually don't call themselves out for being one, Alistair thought, but decided against bringing up. Whatever the reason Adaar had for calling himself that, it was clear he wasn't likely to be talkative about it.

Alistair placed a hand to the back of his head. "Sorry. Is it rude for me to call you a Qunari?"

Kaaras shrugged, twisting his arms so his palms faced out. "Call me whatever you like. Qunari, Vashoth, Tal-Vashoth. They're all Qunlat words, I don't really know what they mean anyway. I'm big and grey, and I'm not going to argue I'm just like everyone else. Whatever word you have for someone like that works with me."

Much like their Warden-Commander, the young Vashoth was out of the ordinary in more ways than just looking the part, and made a rather difficult person to speak with. Although, unlike Aedan Cousland who had an opinion and degree of contempt for everything and everyone, Kaaras Adaar simply did not care. He did not care that he had been drafted into the Grey Wardens. He did not care that he had been thrust into a theatre of war before even reaching the prime of his youth. And he did not care that his stoic attitude could be interpreted as that of a devout follower of the Qun, even though he was raised in complete ignorance to it and that it would've demanded utter thralldom for him as a shackled saarebas.

In this way, he actually did resemble something of the "moody teenager" he claimed to be. Apathy. Or, as Aedan once phrased it, _"the epitome of not giving even a single modicum of a single fragment of a single shit."_

Alistair internally shuddered a bit at thought of his superior's words. If the wardens' current recruitment pattern kept up, he was apt to become the only level-headed one left.

They set off towards the ruins of Ostagar after a brief "right then, let's go" from Alistair and one of his accompanying quips. Unlike their scarred commander, Adaar did not walk side-by-side or in front of Alistair, preferring instead to trail a few paces behind.

"Oh, you know I've been meaning to ask. How're the new recruits doing? Did they get their darkspawn blood?" Alistair turned on his heel and spoke while walking backwards. When he was the Junior Warden of the order, he had to perform the same duties that Adaar was doing now and help induct three warden-recruits into the order shortly before the Fourth Battle of Ostagar. Two of them had died, and the survivor was now in charge. It hardly meant anything now, but he felt a certain sense of responsibility towards Adaar as a result.

"They're alive."

"Just alive? Not all in one piece and shouting 'grrrr! Darkspawn, grrrrrrrrrr'!" Alistair made an exaggerated expression and clenched two fists in front of his face.

"Everything is in my report."

"…Right. Well, did they at least ask about the Joining?"

"They asked. I said 'no'."

"And they took that for an answer? No questions about why it has to be a secret, or why we're all so grim and doom about the whole thing?"

"I said 'no' again."

"Are you sure you're not a stoic Qunari?"

"Didn't I just explain this?"

"Hm. Well, you could've fooled me at least." Alistair faced back forward and returned to walking normally. Having grown up with other boys his age as a templar-in-training, he wasn't unused to adolescents responding to the growing self-consciousness of socialization by placing themselves in shells so to stop themselves from saying something embarrassing or in some obfuscating attempt to appear mysterious. Along with the complications of being a Qunari in human lands, Adaar probably found that type of response to his current stage in life the most appealing.

As far as the Qun went, it was certain that Adaar was neither a follower nor a particularly religious man for any belief system at all. Even less so than Alistair who was the type to follow the Chant's meaning rather than its words.

They passed by the two statues of Alamarri spearmen at the western end of the bridge, taking the left entrance into the Regent's—formerly the King's—Camp.

With reinforcements from across Ferelden and from the Orlesian Grey Wardens (the latter having been allowed across the border only by orders of the Queen herself) having come to Ostagar, the elements of the Circle of Magi and the Ash Warriors had been relocated to the main camp, near the Tower of Ishal due east. In their place was an influx of officers, most of which were nobles of some varying rank. A notable exception to this supplanting was the Fereldan Grey Wardens, still having a place by the fire where Duncan used to stand. One could interpret this as the wardens' importance to ending the Blight, but more than likely it was a way to make Regent of Ferelden's intermediary with the wardens a Fereldan rather than Warden-Commander Fontaine or Warden-Constable Blackwall, both of which belonging to the Orlesian branch. Though, given how insufferable Warden-Commander of Ferelden could be, Alistair had to wonder if said Regent's intense hatred of Orlais was starting to crack under pressure.

Logically speaking; with the removal of blacksmiths, quartermasters, medics, dog handlers, and anything resembling the common man's army from Loghain's command camp, the fortress of Ostagar should have been completely quiet. It should have instead been filled with aristocrats in ornate doublets discussing topics from their education and their dutiful elven servants plodding along beside them. Perhaps mixed with a few more serious ones wearing armor and accompanied by sergeants instead.

But, this was Ferelden.

A boisterous crowd of noblemen had circled around a spectacle in a clearing at the camp. Many were yelling or chanting, some raising a silk sleeved arm and pounding against the air with their fists.

"Gut him!"  
"Slice that godless bastard's neck open!"  
"Go for the eyes, Blackwall, **go for the eyes!** "

Alistair made his way past the loud nobility of Ferelden, his light pushing responded to rather obediently thanks to the Qunari in tow.

Most aristocrats knew the proper hand to use a spoon with and how to eloquently articulate themselves in front of their peers at the Landsmeet or inside their Denerim estates. There was, however, precisely one man universally hated in the entire camp that could drive them to their jeers and turn them into rabble.

And that man was not Warden-Constable Gordon Blackwall, a man who was born in Nevarra and lived in the Orlesian city of Val Chevin. Rather, it was the trueborn Fereldan that he was facing. One man hated universally by soldiers, mages, templars, humans, elves, ash warriors, and everyone else save Alistair and a handful of other wardens at camp.

But most of all, he was hated by Fereldan Nobles. His fellow nobles, at that.

A dark haired grey warden with a face riddled with scars stood opposite of Blackwall, Vigilance in hand. Unlike during his and Alistair's expedition to the source of Darkspawn in the Korcari wilds, he was wearing his nobleman's attire instead of his warden sentinel armor. At least, he called it his nobleman's attire. Fitting to his bizarre personality, he had a rather peculiar penchant towards wearing unmatching black and blue clothes. Draped over his right shoulder was a cloak colored Prussian blue, covering most of his right side. Underneath it he wore dark trousers and a dark shirt, the cloth flat to his skin and the sleeves long, covering every bit of skin below the neck save his hands. The Cousland family's coat of arms was emblazoned on the left side of the chest: a green laurel wreath outlined in white, against the backdrop of a blue escutcheon.

Meanwhile, standing in the more practical choice of the standard grey-and-blue warden armor, was Gordon Blackwall. Recruited in 9:17, Warden-Constable Blackwall was a classically handsome man with an upstanding record and no criminal history. Born in Cumberland without land but with a fierce determination, Blackwall had trained from a young age to be swordsman. This was reflected in his technique, aged as a fine wine. He kept one leg in front of the other, his knees bent and ready to limberly leap forward or back. He held his sword at varying angles, each covering a particular opening that he had studied and memorized how to capitalize on.

Cousland, however, carried his sword low and in a single hand. To the educated eye, his stance resembled something of an off-duty soldier or an untrained peasant's. For someone so markedly intelligent he seemed to fight incredibly stupid.

Blackwall leapt at his opponent, swinging his blade from above his head in a forward slash. A move that brought the weight of the attacker against the smaller muscles in the arms of the defender when blocked overhead.

Cousland simply sidestepped out of the way, at a speed that was uncanny for someone of his size.

Blackwall's teeth grit at the sight of being so easily dodged. At the end of his slash, he instantly brought the blade back to his hip and swung again, this time horizontally.

His sword met only a vertical, inert Vigilance still held solely by Cousland's right hand. When the two blades struck, Blackwall's bounced back and he recoiled as if he had struck at a brick wall. He expected a counterattack, but was surprised to see Cousland react to the opportunity by standing in place with locked knees and closed eyes.

"Ah-dan, are you mocking me?" Blackwall spoke with a mix of a Nevarran and Orlesian accent, restrainedly frustrated by their duel. His opponent hadn't attacked him

"Aedan." Cousland corrected the vowel sounds in his first name. "It's pronounced 'Ay-den', not 'Ah-dan'. Capital 'A'." He opened his eyes. "And I am not mocking you. This is a spar, and I rarely have an opportunity to train my defense against someone who knows what they're doing."

"Very well." Blackwall repositioned himself, but did not strike again. "If I might ask, what is your specialization, Aedan? You do not appear to be a templar or berserker, and I cannot tell whether you are an unconventional champion or a subtle reaver."

"I have no specialization."

Blackwall's face rotated a little. "…Who taught you how to use a sword, Aedan?"

"I taught myself"

"Truly? You taught yourself as a child?"

"I began training in combat when I was seventeen. By then it was simple enough to read the books and improvise what I did not know." Aedan stated this as if it was only natural. It was not unusual for someone to become a squire or begin training at or near that age, but it was rather unnatural for a noble's son to not begin training until adulthood. And even more unusual for young person to be so adept with only a few years of experience.

"Hm. I see." Blackwall relaxed his arms and planted his blade at his feet, with both hands resting atop the hilt. Things were finally starting to come together in his mind. Cousland had been prodigiously parrying and dodging with raw reaction time rather than psychological reads and anticipations as most duelists do.

" _He must not have a solid foundation for attacking_ " Blackwall thought. "Do you usually fight with a shield and heavy armor, Aedan?"

"Only when in formation with an army where I do not have space to maneuver and dodge. I prefer to be unarmored with a longsword and a free hand otherwise."

"Mhmm. Interesting." Blackwall pondered for a moment, trying to discern his opponent's unorthodox style. Eventually he came to a resolution, brought his blade back in front of him, and spoke again. "I have a request, if you will."

"Speak it then."

"I am going to defend now and wait for you to attack. Let us end this duel only when one of us is no longer able to fight."

"As you wish." For the first time since the spar had started, Cousland approached Blackwall.

The crowd had grown quiet, the nobles now gaudily whispering amongst themselves. Alistair overheard two of the nobles standing directly in front of him:

"Care for a wager? Twenty sovereigns on Blackwall."

"I'll see that bet."

Cousland stopped an arm's length away from the Warden-Constable. He raised his right arm, and swiftly, yet completely predictably, swung Vigilance in a cross slash.

Blackwall saw this and anticipated Cousland's attacking arc perfectly, rotating his sword so that its edge would parry it and open up the opportunity for a counterattack.

And he blocked it, just as he intended...

Crack.

Alistair looked away and winced.

An intense pain shot through the front of Blackwall's dominant shoulder. His rotator cuff had torn and the scapula had fractured. The crowd gasped at the sound of bone becoming unsutured.

Cousland placed both hands on his sword and swung again, this time an upward slash from below.

Blackwall defended, parried the dead center of Cousland's blade with his, and was lifted in the air from sheer force as a reward. He felt his abdominal muscle tear beneath the skin and his entire anterior chain scream out in pain.

Blackwall drifted in the air before landing flat on his back. He groaned in pain, delirious of what had just happened. Not a single strike had landed on his body, and no blood had been drawn.

This was what made Aedan Cousland the most fearsome warrior in all of Ferelden.

Not technique. Not years of training. Not a deep understanding of psychology and how another swordsman was likely to react.

It was simple blunt strength and power. An overwhelming, overpowering force that sent shockwaves through the arms holding the blocking sword, rendering parries and nearly all conventional defense useless. He had no complicated technique, because it was completely unnecessary. The only option against him was to dodge, and he was quicker than all but one inside Ostagar's walls.

Cousland reapproached his now fallen foe. He brought his arms up, and then brought the sword down.

Cousland struck not at Blackwall's unguarded torso, but instead at the blade he still loosely held in one hand. The small bones in the wrist and hands broke and shattered from the impact. It flew from Blackwall's hand and slid across the makeshift sparring circle, stopping at the feet of some of the frightened nobles' feet.

The whispers grew in intensity.

"Blackwall's one of the greatest fighters in Orlais, isn't he? How did he lose?"

"There's no comparison. Blackwall's at best one of the top twenty duelists in Thedas, but the one he's up against is one of the Four Living Legends of the Sword in Thedas. Those four are in a league of their own—The Arlathan Knight, The Marshal of Nevarra, The Black Templar, The Butcher of Amaranthine…"

Alistair felt someone grab his arm. He looked to the right to see a hairless old nobleman that Aedan had once referred to as "Ceorlic," looking at him as if he had a desperate need to know some sort of secret.

"You there!" A hushed but urgent whisper from Bann Ceorlic. He pointed at Alistair. "You know this Lord Cousland better than anyone, don't you? What's his weakness?"

" _I do?_ " Alistair thought to himself at the prompt of knowing Cousland better than anyone else. A rather frightening thought. "Weakness…? Um, he's left-handed even though he prefers to swing with his right, if that counts. And…he hates sweets?" Alistair racked his brain for knowledge on Cousland's weaknesses. The most obvious were an inability to lie and a rather tremendous talent for finding the wrong thing to say in any situation, but neither of those were relevant in combat.

"Bullshit!"

The blatant two-facedness by the spectators was broken from a shout in the crowd. The nobleman that had wagered twenty sovereigns on Blackwall earlier had made a rather unnoble exclamation.

Cousland's attention snapped towards to the source of noise. With a stare that could stop a lion dead in its tracks, the noble—along with the dozen or so standing behind him—wordlessly recoiled in horror.

"You have to know something! Please!" Bann Ceorlic shook Alistair's arm. The young warden wondered as to what had driven him to ply so aggressively. "I need to know something, or else he'll—!"

Ceorlic quit pleading at the feeling of a Volcanic Aurum blade resting against his wrist.

"Remove your grasp from my King you insignificant bald piece of shit, before I make you choose which one of your grandchildren's hands I cut off."

Ceorlic let go of Alistair and scampered away at the sound of the Teyrn's voice. He was so frantic in getting an answer that he hadn't even realized he was in the line of sight of the thing he was so terrified of.

All eyes in the crowd suddenly turned towards the red-haired warden that Aedan Cousland had referred to as 'King'. They didn't even seem to notice the rather conspicuous seven-foot Qunari companion standing behind him.

One young noblewoman in particular looked at him, up and down, then smiled and broke out into a giggle.

" _What…? Is there something on my face…?_ " Alistair puzzledly thought, a bit embarrassed by suddenly becoming the center of attention.

"Adaar, heal him. Alistair, follow me." Cousland had walked past the crowd.

At their Warden-Commander's prompting, both quickly darted to follow their orders. In a way, they weren't too different from the submissible nobles they were currently surrounded by.

Alistair followed behind Cousland's back. They left the dumbfounded crowd and the injured Warden-Constable behind.

Teyrn Cousland may not have been loved by his peers. But he was most certainly feared.

 

…

……

 

A panting elf named Pick focused his efforts on carrying a massive black-and-red metal chestpiece across camp.

He had to stop a couple times for rest, though he couldn't afford letting the armor touch the ground, lest he need to carry it all the way back and redo his work.

Peering over one of the oversized black pauldrons, he saw his destination in sight—a circular arrangement of white columns and a log fire in the center. The Grey Wardens' old Commander would often warm his hands over it before he passed in the battle last year.

Two wardens were currently beside the fire, one sitting in silverite armor and one standing in a rather odd black-and-blue outfit. The elf worried a bit that the blue cloak of the dark-haired one would catch fire, but decided it was against his better judgment to bring that up.

As he approached, he noticed another warden—a Qunari with a wooden staff—was leaning against one of the columns with his eyes closed. For someone so large he seemed particularly good at making his presence unnoticeable.

"I'm finished shining your armor, milord." Pick leaned back so that the much taller human could see his work better. A pain shot through his lower back when he did. " _This. Is Very. Heavy._ "

Aedan turned to look not in the elf's eyes, but instead directly at his Warden Sentinel Armor. He leaned over with a straight back, inspecting every nook and cranny with microscopic detail.

He stopped at a crevice between two plates at the hip. Pick gulped.

"You missed a spot. Take it back and shine it again." He stood up tall.

"Milord, is that really necessary? I have seven other—"

"I also enjoy sharpening my ears and helplessly watching humans rape my women."

"…Huh?" Pick was confused. Did he really just hear that?

"What, your ears not long enough? Mala'arlath him namin mi'shemlin sa. Get out of my sight, elf."

The elven messenger's mouth dropped and he turned away, unable to meet the noble's gaze. He brought himself back upright and ran away with the armor at full speed, as if all the fatigue he garnered by bringing it here were a lie. He wasn't Dalish by any stretch of the imagination, but he learned enough growing up in an alienage to understand what the Warden-Commander had just said.

"Was scaring the servant that just spent an hour shining your armor half to death really necessary?" Alistair stood up and scowled. "You could've been at least a little nicer than usual."

"I was being nicer than usual. The last time he was late I had him put under the quartermaster's switch. I even reiterated myself in Elvish." Cousland replied with indifference.

"About that. What did you say?"

"Roughly translated, that the love of his life grows teary-eyed while a human…well, simply put, he is a cuckold."

Dark.

"Maker's breath…" Alistair shook his head. "What did he do to you?"

"Nothing." Cousland's expression didn't change. "I just hate knife-ears."

Alistair raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. He hated them enough that he learned to insult them in their own language, apparently. "I get the feeling sometimes that there's no one you don't hate."

"That is not true. I have never spited you, and Adaar is tolerable."

"Now what makes Adaar so special? I thought you didn't like Qunari either."

"Semantically speaking, he is a Vashoth, not a Qunari. And he is tolerable because he keeps quiet and does what he's told."

Alistair looked back at Adaar, half-expecting some sort of objection. The other half of his expectations ended up being fulfilled, however, when Adaar was completely unaffected by his Commander's words.

Man's emotion passed through Adaar like a chanter—all it made him do was blink twice before continuing whatever he was planning to do before. His inoffendable nature made for a good synergy with his commander—a man who seemed to want to offend everyone.

"You know, we never asked." The question occurred to Alistair now that "How s Warden-Constable Blackwall?"

"Couldn't mend the fractures, sent him to a spirit healer in the main camp instead. Said he'll be ready to fight in the battle." Adaar used as few words as possible while still describing every step. He was a bit more talkative with Cousland around.

"Good. It is fortunate that I held back." Aedan sounded pleased with himself.

"You held back. Really." There wasn't a lack of sarcasm in Alistair's voice.

"He likely deserved his injuries regardless. I hate Orlesians."

"Orlesians too? And what did they do?" Alistair asked, curious as to the reason when both he and Aedan were born after the end of the Orlesian Occupation.

Aedan opened his mouth, but briefly paused when he saw a flash of red. The fire must've jumped in front of his eyes, he thought.

"…Who knows? They called my mother the Seawolf during the rebellion. When she was my age, she was jumping onto Orlesian ships and bludgeoning Chevaliers to death with their own feathered helmets. Perhaps it is simply in my blood."

Alistair smirked. He put two open hands up in front of himself. "Just a guess—think you might've just maybe inherited just a couple other things from her too. Just maybe." He dropped his hands to his side.

"I certainly did not inherit my father's love of women with short hair."

Another thing Aedan hated. This time, however, it was rather clear what the cause was. After all, the reason why had two feet and was fastly approaching them as they spoke.

In the corner of their eyes, they saw "her."

The Head Scout of the Fereldan Army, dressed in drakeskin-and-dragonhide light armor lined with fur at the neck. Flanking her on both sides were two of the light infantryman in her unit, both highlighting that she was rather short for a human in this camp.

She carried two daggers on her back. One was a conventional straight edge blade made of white steel, but the other was a curved edge Qunari-style Jambiya made of dragonbone.

She was a very youthful and pretty woman, though a bit too utilitarian for the traditional standards of the word "beautiful." She had short, albeit loose, raven hair—a single bang of which fell across the middle of her forehead and landed between viridian eyes. Below the eyes her face was filled with delicate, attractive features; putting her starkly out of place in the mostly masculine masses at Ostagar.

And of course, she had a stripe of dried blood across her nose.

"Morning, you three." She had a soft voice, particularly pleasing to the male ear. "Been playing nice with the Darkspawn?"

"Hey, Hawke." Alistair was the first to greet her. They didn't have a particularly cordial relationship, but a speaking one nonetheless.

"Hello, Alistair."

"Greetings, Commander Hawke." Adaar was next. He had moved from his column to his comrades' side in order to properly greet her.

"Oh, drop the 'Commander' part, would you? That's someone else." She laughed.

Hawke turned to the last one of the group, in the center. The Warden-Commander of Ferelden, The Final Boss.

He had his arms crossed, and his eyes closed.

"…Hello, woman."

"Hi there, Aedan."

Cousland kept his arms crossed and his eyes closed, and haughtily turned his head away. "It is improper to refer to a noble by his first name, woman."

"Ohhh, Aedan." Hawke closed her eyes too. "Are you ever going to get that stick out of your ass?"

"Why, do you and Loghain want to play fetch?" He opened his eyes and redirected his intimidating gaze at her. It was the same one that had earlier scared a handful of the Bannorn into submission.

"Ahahahaha!" Hawke had a rather pretty laugh. "…Care to repeat that?"

"My apologies. What I meant to say is that you're a cunt."

"— **!** " The two scouts standing behind Hawke both made startled noises.

But Hawke laughed. And cheerily gave them an order with a genuine smile:

"Hey, you two! Could one you go sharpen my favorite knife? I need to scoop out a man's eyes out of their sockets and then replace them with his balls." 

"Um…mom, dad? Please stop fighting." Alistair spoke nervously with both of his hands up, as if negotiating with a bandit that had a blade to his throat. He was the best possible person to defuse these situations, but it was easier to speak in a smoke-clogged burning house than it was between Hawke and Cousland's antipathy. 

"Are we supposed to be a big happy family?" Adaar spoke up, flat of emotion and numbed to Hawke and Cousland's usual banter.

Hawke opened her eyes and flattened her expression. "More like a pair of divorced parents fighting over custody" she remarked dryly.

"Please. Do you think I would ever be disgusting enough to ever touch someone like you?" Cousland didn't back down from his scorn.

"You see, this is exactly why I don't let you see the kids." Hawke told a boldface lie. Neither of them had kids.

Alistair exhaled the tension in his lungs. Cousland was impossibly vindictive with everyone who didn't obey him, but Hawke at least was self-aware enough to know when something had become stupid.

As much as the two quarreled and exchanged threats, Hawke and Cousland had never actually come to blows. Alistair liked to think that it was out a mutual, begrudging respect the two held for each other's abilities. But he couldn't discount the possibility that Cousland simply held back because of his perceived rank of "King" that Alistair held; and that Hawke, being the more moral of the two, would only defend herself when Aedan Cousland made the first move.

For whatever the reason, there was a rather shaky ceasefire between what should be two allies. And Alistair was the closest thing to a neutral party.

"Ready to exchange reports?" Hawke spoke up, diplomatically this time.

Cousland didn't answer with words. He instead silently handed her a sheet of parchment and took one from her in turn.

"Did you write this on your way back from the Korcari Wilds?" Hawke asked after taking a quick glance at Cousland's report.

"Indeed I did." Cousland spoke with a degree of pride. "Impressed with my penmanship? Us nobles learn to write at a very—"

"Is that why you have ink on your hands?"

Aedan stopped at Hawke's observation and looked at his left hand. The side of his palm had a layer of smeared ink on it. "This was…the path was uneven." Left-handedness was generally considered peculiar among the upper-classes and others who frequently wrote, and thus it was something he generally tried to hide. He wielded a sword in his right-hand, preferring it with anything that engaged the muscles of the upper arm. But anything that required use of the fingers and wrists only, like using a quill, was something he was doomed to do with his left hand.

"So," Hawke looked down at Cousland's report. "You've confirmed The Archdemon is still in the Korcari Wilds?"

"We threw a rock at it as a joke." Alistair answered. "And let me tell you—Archdemons? Terrible senses of humor."

"I can imagine." Hawke smiled and shrugged.

"What's the Darkspawn composition of their approaching army?" Cousland spoke while attentively reading the report Hawke had handed him in exchange for his. "Genlocks, Hurlocks, Shrieks, Ogres, Ten-Titties."

"Ten-Titties?" Hawke widened her eyes and placed a hand to her chin, genuinely curious.

"Don't ask." Alistair muttered.

"Right. I would say somewhere from one-hundred fifty to two-hundred ogres. As for the Genlock-Hurlock split, I would it's about fifty-fifty. Six-thousand genlocks, six-thousand hurlocks."

"That would mean about thirteen to fourteen thousand darkspawn overall, when accounting for hidden shrieks." Cousland conjectured.

"That's the number I came up with." Hawke replied. "At least that's my best guess. I didn't exactly stay and count every head."

"Assuming a ten-percent margin of error, at worst we will be dealing with a horde of fifteen-thousand five-hundred darkspawn, then." He pointed at a particular point on Hawke's report. "Is the distance you have listed on this sheet correct?"

"Of course it is." Hawke placed both her hands on her hips and leaned her torso forward, speaking a little irritatedly "A certain Commander of the Grey was sooooo stubborn about telling me how we just had to figure out the distance from the fortress to the Darkspawn horde, even when he had already told me five times when we were planning it. Fifteen and a quarter miles. We used the trees you marked, like you said."

"So twenty-four point five four kilometers?" Cousland was just as irritated. He also distinctly remembered asking her to use the metric system. "Given that they can only move as fast as their slowest unit, and that they will need their Ogres to break our lines…six days. The Sun is still visible, so they will almost certainly strike at night."

"Six days until we all live or die?" Hawke spoke as if it were someone else's problem. "Well, I'm game. Any other questions about what I've written?"

"I am perfectly literate, thank you. Let us move on to the Deep Roads. My Junior Warden should have the third report on both the aforementioned and the current batch of Warden-Recruits."

"Alright. Kaaras…is it…? Am I pronouncing that right?" Hawke darted her eyes to their upper-right corners before quickly reestablishing eye contact. "Anyway, could you please read us some of the information you've gathered?" She tried to sound polite. She may have had the worst relationship with Cousland, but she could usually read him pretty easily. Kaaras Adaar was the biggest unknown for her.

Adaar produced a rolled piece of parchment from his robes. He began reading at the top:

"To the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, Current Head of the Cousland Family, Teyrn of Highever, Acting Arl of Amaranthine, Savior of—"

"Yeah, yeah, he's great and all." Hawke interrupted. "Just skip to the first update the dwarves sent in."

"Currently there are no Darkspawn reported at Caridin's Cross." Adaar stated.

"Good, next." Hawke rather punctually responded.

"No Darkspawn at—"

"Next." Hawke hurried him along. Despite being promoted after the last Battle of Ostagar a little less than a year ago, she was still a rather impatient woman.

"The Aeducan Thaig is currently void of any—"

"Let's skip all observations that say 'no Darkspawn'. What's the first mention of any enemies?" She wasn't bloodthirsty, but sitting on her hands while a darkspawn army marched onward struck her as a little odd.

Adaar quickly glanced through the remaining visible text, before taking a hand and further unrolling the scroll to see the bottommost duties that were written down. He squinted at the sloppily-penned text crammed at the end of the page, before finally placing a large grey-skinned finger on a line of text at the very hem of the paper. "There are reports of giant rats in the Deep Roads."

"…"

"Rats" Cousland drolly repeated, after an interlude of silence.

"Giant ones" Alistair added.

"How, pray tell, did rats get inside The Deep Roads?" The Warden-Commander inquired, taking over while Hawke was still dumbstruck.

"I believe it says that a group of Orlesian Warden-Recruits did not clean up from leftover food they had left out during their ceremonial pre-Joining hunt for Darkspawn blood."

"And this is the highest-listed threat in the Deep Roads?"

"This is the only threat listed for today, Warden-Commander." Adaar answered calmly and obediently.

"And there are no darkspawn, say, next to the giant rats?"

"No, Warden-Commander."

"And they are unafflicted by a mysterious disease or something of the like?"

"No, Warden-Commander."

"Are you tired of appending my rank at the end of each answer yet?"

"No, Warden-Commander."

"Then say it ten times for my amusement."

"Warden-Commander, Warden-Commander, Warden-Commander, Warden-Command—"

"Don't listen to him, you don't have to do that." Hawke put a hand up in front of Adaar, her equilibrium being reestablished by the wardens' natural antics.

"Sorry," Alistair shrugged and grinned. "Adaar always does whatever Aedan tells him to do."

"Oh? Just Adaar? I thought you were both like that." Hawke gestured at Alistair as well.

"A personal insult?!" Cousland shouted, with a sudden outburst of emotion. " **Lese-Majeste!** " A blade wrung out from the sheath he kept underneath his blue cloak.

" _Not again…_ " Alistair thought to himself

"Lese-what?" Hawke narrowed one of her eyes out of confusion.

Cousland read Hawke her rights. "You have committed treason against the Kingdom of Ferelden. By the authority invested in me, I hereby—"

"No, don't. Please. It's alright." Alistair stopped Cousland's speech dead in its tracks.

"…Truly?"

"I don't care. Really." Alistair placed his face in his palm.

"Hm, that's a shame." Cousland closed his eyes and resheathed his sword. "Carry on."

Hawke giggled, trying to cover up her laugh by placing a fist to her mouth. Those two made quite the comedy pair, at least to everyone who wasn't them.

"Sorry, we're all kind of, um, well…you know…" Alistair tripped over his own words trying to describe the situation.

"It's quite alright," Hawke tilted her head and gave a closed-mouth smile at Cousland. "I have a little brother too."

"Seriously?" Alistair opened his mouth and raised one eyebrow. "We look nothing alike."

True to his word, Alistair and Cousland couldn't seem any more different when standing side-by-side. Alistair had comparatively much softer features. Brown eyes that melded together with an off-color of blonde and red hair. A smoothly-skinned face, neither completely boyish nor manly, that tended to make women in groups giggle when they thought he wasn't paying attention. He was, by most accounts, a particularly attractive man.

Meanwhile, Cousland had pitch-black hair and vividly contrasting blue eyes that didn't fit the rest of his wildly masculine appearance. A face riddled with scars, a body trained for killing, and an expression full of scorn for his "inferiors." His appeal was not completely lost on those who preferred the dangerous, but unlike Alistair's was more likely to inspire terror before attraction. Combined with his arrogance and tendency to ignore any woman born to unlanded parents, he was far from the most desired man in camp.

A handsome prince and his fearsome protector. It was a shame they weren't in love, Hawke mused.

"Speaking of which," Hawke turned towards Adaar "how's my family's little troublemaker doing? Getting along with his new friends, I hope?"

"I am fairly certain if there is a designated troublemaker for the Hawke family, she is standing right in front of us." Cousland answered in Adaar's place. "Unless you have another sibling we don't know about."

"Nope, just me and grumpy Carver." Hawke said this without blinking or moving her hands, giving no indication that she was lying. "You'll like him."

"Carver Hawke, along with the other two Warden-Recruits, are currently uninjured and awaiting further instruction. The Joining will take place tonight after The Warden-Commander's meeting with the Regent of Ferelden." Adaar answered neutrally.

"Great, you get to put up with me two more times today." Hawke smirked at Cousland. "Lucky you."

"Two more times, you say?" Cousland refocused his blue-eyed stare at Hawke. "What makes you think you're allowed to be at the Joining with us, woman?"

"I have permission to be there as an observer. Regent's orders." Hawke's viridian eyes deflected his. "Besides, I hate to break it to you, but that whole 'plot twist, you must drink the darkspawn's blood!' thing isn't really a secret anymore. I overheard Queen Anora talking about it the other day."

"Anora?" Cousland spoke with a bit of contempt for the name. "The Pretender is here?"

"Pretender…? Well, yeah, she's here. Arrived yesterday while you were in the wilds with Alistair. Think she's here to boost morale."

"You would not happen to know how to contact the Antivan Crows, would you?" Cousland asked as casually as normal people would talk about the weather.

"Why would I know something like that?" Hawke raised one of her eyebrows in a perfect slope. She had very fine control of her face, and Cousland's out-of-nowhere had a habit of bringing out every expression.

"You don't? I suppose I will have to settle this with her in person then. At the War Council meeting tonight." Cousland resolved.

"Oh, great." Hawke rolled her eyes.

She turned, signaling for both of her scouts to follow her as she walked away. "I can hardly wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** Just a couple notes.
> 
>   * Warden-Constable Gordon Blackwall didn’t die and get replaced by Thom Rainier (i.e. the Blackwall that’s a companion in Dragon Age: Inquisition) until 9:36. So the one here is a different character entirely than the one that’s in the game.
>   * Hawke’s appearance as intended here is just default DA2 FemHawke with green eyes (had to change them or else I’d end up with two black-haired blue-eyed characters). If you have some other imagery in your head and want to go with that instead, then feel free.
> 



	3. War Council

**Prologue, Part Three**

**War Council**

* * *

 

 

Nine figures stood around Ostagar's strategy table under the lighting of torches and a full moon. The table divided them into two groups standing opposite of each other, five on one side and four on the other.

On the side of the five stood Warden-Commander Cousland in the center, flanked by Alistair directly to his right. They were joined by representatives from each of the Grey Wardens' allies: Zathrian, Piotin Aeducan, and Knight-Commander Tavish.

They faced off against a group of four, although it may be more apt to call it a group of three and one. The three were Teyrn Loghain being flanked closely by his lieutenant and his daughter, Ser Cauthrien and Queen Anora respectively. Loghain leaned over the dead center of their makeshift war table, placing both of his greyly-armored hands on a map of Ostagar and drawing himself close enough to the Warden-Commander opposite of him to potentially thrust a dagger to his neck.

The rather inconspicuous 'one' of the group of three and one, however, was a short-haired woman with viridian eyes, standing at the corner and facing away from the epicenter.

Marian Hawke had a rather short attention span, and she never lasted long when the War Council at Ostagar convened. To her credit, she had tried this time—she really had—but once an off-comment about Queen Anora's legitimacy had been met with a challenge to the Warden-Commander's ability to hold titles, and so on and so forth until it devolved into a shouting match, she felt herself begin to tune out the actual content of their words and decided to whimsically compare voices.

And she had to say, in the "belonging on the stage of a playwright's greatest epic" category, Loghain's voice was winning. If the whole General of Ferelden's Armies and Regent of the Kingdom thing didn't work out, he really ought to consider a career in theatre.

"So, this is how humans strategize?" Zathrian, a greyed elf with vallaslin, spoke with obvious disgust. "By screaming, threatening to tear each other apart limb by limb?"

"If you take such offense to our ways, knife-ear, then perhaps you should take your clan back to the Brecilian. It would not be the first time your people have turned their backs on a Blight." Aedan rebutted the Dalish Keeper's comment disrespectfully, with no heed to the fact that Zathrian was one of the many pillars propping up the Wardens' precarious position in Ostagar.

"You have no right!" Anora spoke forcefully, though not shrilly. "Grey Wardens—cannot—hold land. What gives you the right to decide who sits upon the Throne?"

"Perhaps you should take the matter to the National Leader of your Kingdom's Grey Wardens? They typically are typically the ones assigned to resolving these matters." Aedan stroked his chin as if he had a lapse in memory. "Oh, I forgot. That is me." Aedan dropped his hand. "I only accepted this appointment at the urging of another, and because the Blight threatens his ability to assume his birthright. I fully intend to resign and return to my lands at the end of the Blight."

Alistair fidgeted at mention of his alleged 'birthright'. Cousland had been thoughtful enough to leave out his name, but he was still very uncomfortable with the idea.

Hawke spoke up, a bit quietly, but audibly. "Is this really the time to be arguing about this? I have family in Lothering, and—"

"Besides, who are you to speak of rights?" Cousland's voice overpowered Hawke's and resumed control of the conversation.

Hawke shrugged, and resumed the game inside her head. " _Now who's the winner 'most likely to have a tragic past' award? The elf? He's Dalish so something bad probably happened to him. Alistair? Maybe he's one of those characters who hides his personality behind a sense of humor. Oh, how about Aedan…? Nope, no way. He was born a son of a bitch_."

"Who are you the daughter of, precisely?" Cousland continued. "A common cabinet-maker and a bandit who happened to have a fleeing King fall into his lap? What gives a woman whose two parents were both born surnameless commoners the privilege of my fealty?"

"Some of us agree with The Commander's sentiment, Your Majesty." Piotin Aeducan spoke up. "A good leader does not always do what is kind or popular. My family currently fighting for our own birthrights in Orzammar, and your insistence at defending Ostagar for the sake of Southern Ferelden has cost us some of our best men."

As harsh as it was, the cousin of Bhelen Aeducan spoke truly. Ostagar was defensible, but so were the Korcari Wilds. The Thedosian Armies couldn't mount an effective offense against the Darkspawn, and a major battle hadn't been fought since King Cailan's death at the last battle nearly a year ago. Anora's intentions to stop the Horde from advancing into the lands directly south of the Bannorn—where they could be fought in an open field with conventional tactics—were at worst a political move designed to remain popular with the general population and at best an earnest desire to prevent the loss of life. The nonhuman armies cared little for Ferelden's politics. And the lords in Northern Ferelden, save maybe a few empty words of sympathy and unity, didn't particularly give a damn about the lives of those in the way of the Horde as long as it could be stopped before it reached their own lands and the economic strain of having so many of their farmers and townsfolk levied as soldiers finally ended.

"And does that truly matter now?" Anora looked down at the dwarf. "The Darkspawn are marching now to give you that deciding battle you have all been longing for. Many lives are in the Hinterlands and Southron Hills, some of them too young or elderly. Even if we sent our armies to help them evacuate, it would be impossible to get more than half out of harm's way in time."

Anora's point, of course, was equally valid. Even though there hadn't been a major battle for all four seasons now, with Hawke's report on the amassed darkspawn having mobilized and preparing to attack Ostagar, much of the nobility's complaints were now moot. Not to mention an internal displacement of refugees within Ferelden's borders would strain the north of the country even further.

"And how many thousands of Darkspawn have the Broodmothers spawned in that time?" Cousland asked a question he knew she could not answer. "How many of our men will die to the blades of the Horde's bolstered ranks? How many widowed women and orphaned children will be created because you ordered us to sit on our hands in Ostagar and could claim your own were bloodless? And for what, precisely? The effectiveness of your smile? I thought you were an intelligent woman, Anora. Who would have imagined that the power behind the throne and our Queen-to-be would be unable to do simple math?"

"Careful, boy." Ser Cauthrien whipped her words at Aedan. "You are speaking to the Queen of Ferelden. The Seneschal would consider such words treason."

"And do what?" An arrogant expression marked Cousland's face. "You know that both South Reach and Redcliffe will march with Highever's banner over Gwaren's, and that the only thing the minor lords hate more than me is the sitting Regent. With Howe dead, I am the only thing keeping the Coastlands in line, and you already have the brunt of Bannorn demanding their levies back. If not for me, we would face an open rebellion, as well as the Blight. Do not act as if you somehow possess the upper hand."

"The upper hand?"

A whisper, leaking out of a mouth as if it were an accidental spilling of words. Yet it was heard by all who were present, with no room for ambiguity.

He had been quiet throughout most of Cousland's outburst, but when Teyrn Loghain spoke, people listened.

"The upper hand?" The Hero of River Dane repeated. "Did our people have the upper hand when the Orlesians invaded, Warden? Did they charge, armed with nothing save maybe a hoe or pitchfork, against plate-armored knights—because they had the upper hand? Did I flail helplessly as a young boy against the Orlesian soldier holding my arms behind my back as I watched his commander force himself on my mother and cut her throat afterwards…because I thought I had the upper hand? Do you think that Maric and I; as we ran across Ferelden from one shadow of Orlais to the other, crawled through forests as we heard the stampede of chevalier cavalry trampling the grass around us, and found ourselves outnumbered in every battle until the last—ever thought—even for a fleeting second—up until the moment that he severed Meghren's head from his body—that we ever had the upper hand? We are Teyrns both, you and I. I will not let you seize the land our countrymen fought and bled for as if we merely persevered them—"

Loghain enunciated the first vowel in 'preserved' with a hard 'e' splitting it into two words and powerfully raising his deep voice on the second syllable.

"—to be yours for the taking!"

Undaunted, Cousland fired back, matching one speech with another:

"Do not think that because our titles are equal that I do not know who you are. The commoners may sing praise of the Hero of River Dane and the nobility may keep their whispers outside of his earshot, but I remember what my parents had forgotten. The son of a farmer, a man who owes everything to a dead king and being in the right place at the right time. The only Teyrn Mac Tir that has ever existed is the one standing right in front of me. You may think me a youthful upstart, but my family's lands have been the shield of Denerim for ten of your lifetimes. I am a descendent of Dane and Hafter, Loghain, not some overconfident Orlesian with an exposed flank. I can beat you in the Landsmeet. And I can beat you on the battlefield."

"Enough!" A fierce shout came from the far end of Loghain's side. Hawke had slammed both of her hands on the strategy table. "Who cares who gets to wear the pointy ring of metal on their head?! We are in the middle of a Blight! And out of all the tens of thousands of Darkspawn marching to Ostagar as we speak, I did not see a single one of them who were going to turn the other way just because someone new was in charge. So shut up, figure out what we need to do, or I swear to the Maker I'll steal a horse and lead the charge myself."

The war table was silent as all eyes fell on Hawke.

"I'm sorry…who are you?" Anora broke the silence. She looked at Hawke, whom she had only been vaguely aware of until recently, with curiosity.

"Me?" Hawke grinned. "I'm just a farm girl." She closed her eyes and placed a flat hand to her cheek with the corners of her mouth upright. Her voice had returned to its soft tone.

"Hawke." Aedan glanced away with an obvious displeasure at the sound of her name. "The woman calls herself Hawke."

"So you know it after all!" Hawke exclaimed.

Anora looked tilted her head down slightly with idly open eyes. After a brief pause, she looked back up. "Hawke is right." She looked at Cousland first, and then the rest of the members of the War Council. "Whether or not I should be Queen is a matter for the Landsmeet. If the Blight isn't stopped here, then there may not be a Ferelden to rule."

Loghain's eyes were fixed on the battle plans. At the sound of his daughter's words, he grimaced slightly, before raising his head to meet Cousland's. "…Aye."

The Warden did not meet Loghain's gaze, keeping his eyes fixed to his side.

"Aedan."

Alistair spoke up for the first time. Unlike the powerful figures at the table, he didn't garner the attention of everyone at the table, but he knew the one person that would always listen could hear him.

"…Our main battle formation." Cousland looked at the map. "Will it be where Cailan and Duncan were last time?"

"Closer to the bridge, behind fortifications." Loghain answered. "I will command from the center."

They finally began their strategizing in earnest. It wouldn't be Ferelden, after all, if the leaders didn't nearly come to blows on the eve of fighting side-by-side.

"Will our main division of Archers be positioned on the ground as last time or on the bridge?"

"On the bridge," Loghain dragged an armored finger across the representation of the bridge on the map of Ostagar, as if drawing a line. "And also on top of the Fortress's outlying ridges." He traced his finger along the curved edges of Ostagar from where one could oversee the Korcari Wilds. They would have archers raining down on the Darkspawn from the north, west, and east.

"Very well, I will place the trebuchets I requisitioned from Highever here inside the main walls and calculate the angles over the next few days." Cousland tapped the tip of his pointer finger twice against spot in question. "Once the melee has ensued, a Grey Warden by the name of Kaaras Adaar will oversee their use against the reinforcing ranks. What do you have in mind for our oils?"

"An excellent question. Hawke?"

"Yes, Sir." Hawke didn't refer to Loghain as 'Your Lordship' as his position might dictate, but otherwise still refrained from using his first name. "My scouts will oversee them. We'll have them along the bridge in case we get pushed back too far and along the eastern ridge in order to narrow our chokehold in the valley."

"I see." Cousland placed a hand to his chin. Though the man did not seem to be aware of it himself, Alistair had noticed that Cousland always seemed to place his left hand somewhere on his face whenever he was in a moment of thought. "With our forces as bolstered in the center as they are, it is assured the Darkspawn are not going to be enticed solely towards the valley as they were last time. We will require a strong flank hillside at the Tower of Ishal. I trust you have something in mind?"

"I was thinking the Dalish's light infantry. If—" Loghain's voice paused a moment. The shallow breath and the ambience of torches burning seemed to die at his command. "—there are no objections."

Zathrian folded his arms, his eyes already narrow. "I take it we do not have a choice? Fine, you shall have your soldiers."

"Also," Cousland added a command "group your infantry together with any magi you have. Keepers, Firsts, any healers or assorted hedge mages you might have. They will fight better with other elves than humans they have never spoken to before."

Knight-Commander Tavish, a devoted man of the particularly inflexible type, jumped a bit in his armor and made a noise like a scared cat. "But that's—!"

"—'That's,' what, precisely?" Cousland looked over at the Knight-Commander, his scars a seeming a bit deeper than usual. The templar noticed that one of the two dragonclaw scars overlapped over his left eye, the scarring on one of his eyelids only visible when the eye was closed or narrowed.

Aedan Cousland had a blood-freezing stare that could turn a man's veins brittle.

"…That's perfectly fine. Continue." Tavish straightened his back and looked at the empty space directly ahead of himself as if he were standing at attention. He was a very devoted man. And right now he wanted nothing more than to devote himself to not looking anyone in the eye.

"Seems this matter is settled, then." Loghain's grave voice seemed to settle comfortably into the talk of soldier placement. "There is one particular site I would like to discuss, however. Cauthrien?"

"Yes, Your Lordship?"

" _Your Lordship?_ " Alistair thought to himself, finding the form of address between two people that had known each other for so long a bit peculiar.

"The Tower of Ishal—is the breach that the Darkspawn tunneled through still open?"

"Yes, My Lord. Shall I close it?" Cauthrien asked, seeking confirmation.

"No…" Loghain kept his eyes on the map and held up an open hand in his crossed arms. He curled his ring and little finger, rocking his hand at the wrist twice, his mouth slightly ajar, as if trying to find the words to describe a newfound discovery. "…keep it open. We can use this against them."

A few confused looks were exchanged among members of the War Council. Keep it open…? The delay that was caused by the Darkspawn's unforeseen penetration into the Tower of Ishal was one of the reasons the King was dead. If history were to repeat itself, the Darkspawn would surely use it again and then flank the light infantry and archers defending the bridge.

"…Your Lordship, is that truly wise?" Cauthrien double checked the map, trying to see if she missed something. "Without the Tower of Ishal, the darkspawn have no choice but to fight us uphill in order to reach our archers and oils. Even if we manage to relieve pressure from our two fronts in the valley by opening up a third, we'll have no support or terrain advantage. And there is no way to seal the tunnels once the battle begins."

"There is a way." Loghain insisted, keeping his eyes on the map. He placed both hands on the map and leaned forward, a sly expression belonging to the young marking the face of a veteran from a past generation. "Perhaps our leader of the Wardens can tell us." Loghain looked up at Cousland. Throughout the general confusion that had spread, there was one other man at the table who had not been thrown off-balance in the slightest.

Cousland looked back at Loghain with a bit annoyance, as if he were being asked for the answer to two plus two or for the name of the capital city of Orlais. He solved the riddle rather disinterestedly:

"Lyrium Sand." He placed two fingers at his temple. "You intend to let the darkspawn advance all the way to the stairs, then trigger a chain reaction from above by utilizing preplaced explosives in the supports and ceiling to trigger a cave-in, killing everything caught fighting below."

Loghain's sly, almost adventurous smile persisted through Cousland's explanation. "It seems I underestimated you, Warden. Tell me, out of curiosity, are you versed in architecture?"

Cousland moved his fingers from his temple to his mouth, looking up as if he were peering into his own thought bubble.

"Hm, not truly. I read a hundred or so works of technical literature regarding mathematics and Tevinter engineering in my youth, but it's not quite a passion of mine in present day."

Ser Cauthrien placed a palm above one of her eyes and shook her head. "You are far, far too young to utter the phrase 'in my youth,' Teyrn Cousland."

"It was some time ago, regardless." Aedan flicked his own hand away, in the same way that a dainty stick of a nobleman half his size would, and brought his eyes back down to level. "My role in Highever preceding my family's death was more of a judicial nature than a stewarding one. As far as the design of buildings and other structures go, my background in the field is purely an academic one."

"Hmm." The Teyrn of Gwaren grunted. "Well, you could have fooled me."

"I do not 'fool' people, Loghain." Aedan looked oddly irritated by the most harmless remark of the night. "The only words I ever tell others are the truth."

"Yes, yes," Loghain dismissively responded, his accent dragging out the 's' sound. "As you've said before."

"As for who shall hold the hallway," Cousland continued. "Well—it is a simple enough fill-in the blank obvious to anyone fit for more than tilling fields until they reproduce and die—but allow me to make one conjecture further. You intend to utilize the Legion of the Dead as you did at the Battle of River Dane. Their experience with fighting underground in narrow terrain, familiarity—albeit perhaps a distant one—with lyrium sand, and willingness to die for the greater picture all make them the most suited to be the sacrificed pawns on the board." He cast a sideways glance at one of the allies on his side of the table. "Isn't that right, Aeducan?"

Piotin Aeducan coarsely grunted in response, as if doing so in lieu of bumping against the shoulder he couldn't reach. In truth, the Teyrn of Highever probably knew as much about dwarven tactics as Harrowmont or Endrin's deceased middle child. Piotin Aeducan, who couldn't have guessed Lyrium Sand to be Loghain's hidden ace or how it would be implemented, kept himself decidedly wordless.

Clap, clap, clap.

At the corner, a rather amused Hawke was congratulating him.

"Oh, we're all very impressed about how smart you are, Aedan. Really. This is how much you impressed us." Hawke smiled, delivering her half-heartedness with a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude. "But you want to know what impresses me even more? The idea of crushing a bunch of dwarves to death and leaving the ones not immediately killed by the cave-in to suffocate to death. A real winner, that one."

"Woman," Cousland faced her and closed his eyes with a contrastingly serious expression. "Do you ever cease being an incessant bitch in your life, or do you simply spend it heckling any form of speech possible while adding nothing constructive to the conversation?"

"Oh, no!" Hawke delightedly closed her eyes, clasped her cheeks with both hands, and made a fake expression of terror. "The big, baaaad, Butcher of Amaranthine is saying mean things to me! What will he do next? **Eat me**?!" Hawke threw her head back and cackled, producing a rather rural snort as she did.

Watching the whole ordeal, the currently quiet Alistair swore to himself that if Hawke ever had the opportunity to see a dragon, she would probably poke it with a stick just to see its reaction.

Though, Cousland had already thrown a rock at one, so maybe they had something in common after all.

"But honestly," Hawke abruptly stopped laughing. "Is this really what you want to do? Let them die a slow, agonizing death just so you can kill a few more Darkspawn than we do of our own?"

"Woman, they're called 'The Legion of the Dead', not 'The Legion of We Want to Live Forever'." Cousland remarked.

"Though that would do wonders for recruitment..." Alistair quietly quipped to himself.

Truth be told, Alistair actually agreed with Hawke. But in reality he also knew that any words of wanting to take the moral high ground would be dismissed by everyone else at the Council as the naivety of an inexperienced man.

"Hawke," Ser Cauthrien spoke up. "I shouldn't need to say this, but the lives of many thousands depend on us holding Ostagar. With all of our levies raised, there's hardly an able-bodied man left between here and Denerim. If we do not win, neither will the women and children that would be in the Darkspawn's way on their march through the rest of Ferelden." Cauthrien placed her hands to her hips, a slight rustle of her metal armor being made as she did. "Do we really want to put their lives on the line because we were unable to make the harder choice now?"

"Harder for who?" Hawke asked. "I don't see anyone at this table who's volunteering to make their last stand with the dwarves." She shrugged. "Seems to me that the only thing you're willing to say is a daint 'oh, what a pity', and that you wouldn't even give that if it weren't for me bringing it up." Hawke turned her whole body towards Cauthrien. Hawke was shorter than Cauthrien, despite her being another human woman, so she had to tilt head a bit up to look her directly in the eyes. "I'm asking if you—any of you—care that we're about to send people to their own deaths."

Loghain drew a long, gravelly sigh, feeling a bit of age in his ribcage as he did. Earlier, in a rush of scheming he had felt young again. But at Hawke's words, as if waking from a wild dream to the reality of his sore back, he had felt his age. "The currency of war—is always life. We can cover our eyes and deny it; kick, scream and revile it, bargain and shop for the best price—but it must always be paid."

The Hero of River Dane's voice dropped in volume as he looked at Hawke with a bit of curiosity.

"Why is it that you are angry, Lady Hawke? Is it because you are arguing with us over why we have to pay in lives, or is it because you are arguing with yourself about why war requires such a price? If it's the latter, I don't blame you. I've done the same many times over, in my tent when the night turns quiet or on the field when there're more still eyes pointing towards the sky than there are uncovered blades of grass to be counted. It always ends the same way."

Loghain's intonation dragged out the 'al' in 'always' with a long 'O' sound.

Hawke looked away and sighed. "Seems like I'm being outvoted." She put a hand to her temple and rubbed it as if she had a sinus infection. "Fine, do whatever you want. But do drop the 'Lady' part. It's flattering, but I'm just as peasant as the rest of the dirt-covered farmers and villagers that you dragged out for this bit of tea."

"Pardon me for noticing, Hawke," Anora cast a glance around her father's profile towards the Head Scout. "But most peasants—and banns for that matter—would refer to our predicament in Ostagar as something a bit more…vulgar, than a 'bit of tea'."

"I'm an educated peasant, alright?" Hawke replied as if trying to drop the matter. "I might not have read as much as Lord Reads-a-Hundred-Textbooks-for-Fun over here, but my family had a library, and my father didn't raise me to be boring."

"Really?" Anora's interest was piqued. "What was his name, if I may ask?"

"…We're getting a bit off topic. Besides!" Hawke jammed a finger against the southern portions of the map, trying to draw attention to the forests from where the darkspawn would attack. "We've been avoiding a rather big topic. Our positions against the darkspawn at the valley and on the hillside surrounding the Tower of Ishal are good and all against things that walk on two feet, but what happens if the friendly neighborhood Archdemon shows up?" Hawke looked at Cousland. "Not saying that he will, or that you two didn't actually see him, but it's possible that he's moved since you last saw him twelve hours ago."

"Unlikely." Cousland scoffed, but then acquiesced. "But not impossible, true. In such an occasion the Wardens will take care of it."

"Didn't some famous General once say 'War is an unpredictable something something'? Where—just in case—will the Wardens be if he shows up?"

"I do not recall any famous General with such a vague, peculiar quote. As for our positioning…" Cousland looked back at the map. He recalled an old legend in his head, one claiming that in one of the battles of the Blights of old, the armies of all the great kings Thedas took the field in order to make one last, desperate stand against the Darkspawn Horde. And when they saw that they were faced by a horde which outnumbered the living, the Grey Wardens came, swooping down on their griffons and forming a barrier between the armies of men and those of the Black City. The battle raged, the armies of men marching behind the feather and steel until the last darkspawn fell—and a miracle had occurred. Not a single life behind the line of the Grey Wardens had been lost.

He didn't believe in miracles.

"…The bulk of the Wardens will be in the valley, six rows behind the divisions of the front line. A smaller token force led by Alistair will be stationed at flank in the occasion that the Archdemon appears."

" _Huh?_ " Alistair didn't say anything out loud, but looked over at Cousland with a bit of a parted mouth and rather plain surprise.

Elsewhere, however, heads nodded at Cousland's plan, the War Council being more drawn in to the Teyrns' plans as time drew on. As powerful as an Archdemon could be, it could only be in one place at one time. Ferelden's forces would be thickest in the valley, but in order for the Archdemon to strike at them it would need to expose its wings and neck to the archers above.

And if it struck higher, near the Tower of Ishal, causalities would be light and hindered from the terrain.

In both cases Grey Wardens would be nearby in the occasion that they needed to kill it.

"Furthermore," Cousland continued, "if the Archdemon does appear, I believe it to be prudent to utilize the Tower of Ishal and light it to let the Wardens know. But, properly this time. We'll have magi from the Orlesian forces perform the ritual that Uldred suggested before the Fourth Battle."

"Ahem…about that."

A small voice objected to Cousland's suggestion. He looked over at Knight-Commander Tavish, who held no small amount of self-second-guessing at his objection.

"I take it this is not another objection based in morality, Templar."

"Ah, no. Well—but—well…" Tavish stumbled over his own words before finally giving something of a final statement. "The mages can't perform any large ritual at the moment. It's simply impossible."

"I see." Cousland sounded calm. Like the calm before the storm. "The reason for this being…?"

"We are out of lyrium."

"Out of lyrium?" Cousland repeated blankly.

"It's the truth!" Tavish looked away. "Our last shipment from Orzammar to Ferelden arrived at the Circle Tower over a year ago. And as you may have heard, we recently had something of an…incident at Kinloch Hold."

"I have heard, yes." Cousland closed his eyes and angled his eyebrows. The Templars' recent blunder in Ferelden was a bit of an infamous story in the camp. The Warden-Commander proceeded to summarize the gist of it in a couple sentences:

"In short all of the templars and magi disappeared from the circle tower without a trace, save a sole mad survivor freshly initiated into the Templar Order who claimed he has no knowledge of how this state of affairs came to be. Nor is said knowledge possessed by you or any other living soul associated with the Chantry. Is that correct?"

"Well…"

"And you are telling me, in addition to these several templars and magi which may or may not now be considered apostates, you lost an entire kingdom's supply of lyrium as well?"

"Please try to understand, My Lord, we are just as bewildered as the rest of you." Tavish looked at him with apologetic eyes. "We had no warning when Knight-Commander Greagoir's entire detachment and circle went missing, we simply stopped hearing anything from them and sent a force to investigate—only to find the tower completely deserted. As impossible as it sounds, it is the truth. Everyone who lived in that tower has vanished. Mages, templars, tranquil…gone! And not a single one has reappeared."

"There is no need to grovel, Templar. I believe you, the lyrium is gone." Cousland opened his eyes. "Gone into the black market and into the crippling addictions of those decomposing things you call knights. But that's not really my concern, is it?"

The Warden-Commander dismissively averted his gaze from Tavish, much to the latter's relief.

He instead refocused it on Loghain, and continued:

"Fine, if we cannot have the magi light it, then we will simply have it done by hand. But this time, we shall start the battle with them already at the top of the tower, as opposed to charging before they have even crossed the bridge."

"If you're trying to strike at my ego, Warden, then may I remind you that it was Cailan that ordered you two to the top of the tower, not I?"

"Furthermore," Cousland ignored Loghain's rebuttal. "There is no need for a Grey Warden, let alone two, to be spared for the task. Especially given the Tower of Ishal's purpose this time. Allow me to choose someone else."

"I trust you have someone in mind, then?"

"I do." Cousland replied to Loghain and then slid his focus to the end of the table. There was a woman with a stripe of dried blood on her face standing there.

"What? Is there something on my face?" Hawke poked herself at the spot where the dried blood crossed the bridge of her nose, and then went cross-eyed trying to look at it. "Well, other than this thing."

"Woman."

"Who? There are three of us here, you'll need to be a bit more specific."

"Woman whose last name starts with an 'H'."

"Oh Andraste, I got a letter!" Hawke acted surprised and swooned. "I love you too, Aedan!"

" **DIE.** "

"Gyahahahahaha!" Hawke made an evil laugh. "And the answer is yes, I'll light the tower. Pouring oils doesn't take too many soldiers, and most of my scouts won't be very useful on the battlefield." She titled her head and smiled. "There, does that make you happy?"

Cousland was a firm believer in violence being the solution to all answers in life, and that evidence to contrary simply indicated that not enough was being used. Hawke was a particularly roguish sort, the sort that preferred to dodge and counter enemy blows rather than attack. The best working strategy against Aedan's verbose was to meet the grandiose with the lighthearted and the direct aggression with a redirect.

"To recap," Ser Cauthrien tried to draw attention back to the upcoming battle. "The Fereldans, Orlesians, Dwarves—save the Legion of the Dead which shall hold the tunnels beneath the Tower of Ishal—most of the Grey Wardens, and half the Templars will all be part of the main defense line in the valley between the Tower of Ishal and the fortress of Ostagar. The Dalish, Half the Templars, and a small detachment of Grey Wardens will hold the hillside flank leading to the Tower of Ishal and the bridge. Siege weaponry will be deployed inside the fortress of Ostagar. All available archers from all armies will report to the ridges and bridge. A detachment of Hawke's scouts will operate our siege oils, while the rest will stand watch inside the Tower of Ishal itself and light it if the Archdemon appears." She slowly turned her head to scan everyone's faces. "Are there any other questions regarding positioning?"

"One last thing." The voice that raised the last question was none other than the one standing closest to her.

Loghain looked at Cousland and rose a closed hand. "You've spoke of where the rest of the Wardens will be, however, I am curious. Where will you be?"

"In the valley, with you. Direct command of the Wardens will be assumed by Warden-Commander Fontaine, so I will probably go where I'm needed throughout the ranks." Cousland replied, a bit cooled off from his antics with Hawke.

Just as it was for Cailan and Duncan, they would live or die depending on the battle's result. There would be no retreat from the valley if the Darkspawn won.

"Looking for the perfect opportunity to stab me in the back, are you?" Loghain smiled confidently.

"Rest assured, Loghain; if I had a knife at my hand and your back to its tip, I would turn you around and let you know before thrusting it forward."

To the surprise of everyone who knew him, Loghain laughed. A single "Ha!" It was such an odd, unnatural sound, not one he was used to making at all. "I look forward to seeing you after the battle is over, Warden."

The Warden in black smiled.

An arrogant, unashamed smile. The one belonging to the villain at the end of a long story. The maddening, evil, ever conquering smile belonging to the one that represented everything the hero despised.

And yet, a smile. Genuine and unsarcastic in its joy. He turned and said one last thing.

"As do I, Loghain."

He left with the Alistair hurriedly clinging near his side and the rest of the Grey Wardens' allies following in tow. Before his figure had completely disappeared, Loghain heard a loud stomp against wood. Hawke had jumped on top of the table and cupped her hands around her mouth, trying to make herself sound louder. "Just couldn't let someone else get the last word in, could you?!" She jumped down onto the stone ground, with the sort of casual, youthful disregard for her knees forgotten to those further than halfway across their journey through life. "Wait up, you! I still have a Joining to go to, and you're not getting rid of me yet!" She darted off into the night.

And by the Maker, was she fast.

"I'll need to give a speech to the soldiers first thing in the morning. If you'll excuse me…" Anora left with not quite the same haste, but it still seemed as if she didn't have time to tell her father bye.

Seemed she didn't have much time for it at all, lately.

The details would have to be further hammered out by the field commanders, but for better or for worse, they had decided on where everyone would make their stand.

The air was cold, the night in the midst of its transition from blue to black.

"Energetic."

Loghain described his departing company in a muttered statement, feeling an ache in his shoulder that had persisted for the past week. When had waking up in the morning started being enough to cause his body to break down?

"Are you alright, Loghain?"

"Hmm?" Loghain at first grunted in response to Ser Cauthrien's concern.

She had called him "Your Lordship" in front of the War Council, but he was always 'Loghain' in private.

"I am fine." He said, but his voice betrayed him with fatigue.

"They make you tired just looking at them, don't they?" Cauthrien looked forward.

"I could survive Anora when she was five years old. A few rowdy young soldiers and the whole of the Darkspawn horde doesn't compare." Loghain spoke in deadpan.

Cauthrien smiled. "Maybe. But you were twenty years younger then."

Loghain glanced at his lieutenant with a bit of amusement. "If that's your way of saying it's time to pass over the reins, I'm afraid you haven't even struck a glancing blow."

"Oh? Well in that case, how about we join the Wardens and spend the rest of our lives with the Orlesians instead?"

"Cauthrien, since when have you begun possessing the power of insight into my darkest nightmares?"

She laughed. "Give it ten years and you'll be leader of the Wardens in Orlais, ready to march on Weisshaupt." Ser Cauthrien looked a bit wistfully across the empty table. Even though they were their adversaries, she was looking at the spot where Cousland and Alistair stood. "You know…when I look at those two, they remind me of you and him."

"Me and who, precisely?"

"Maric—and you."

Loghain looked to the nighttime sky. Even though he had wrinkled in the forehead and grown to become the leader of this country, it still hadn't changed since the night he found Maric.

His mind wandered back to the memory of his former King's first appearance: dirty, bloody, fresh with the aura of a recent kill. Somewhere deep down, he knew that Maric would change his life from the moment he offered his hand to help.

He thought of Cauthrien's words. The resemblance was there, even if he loathed to admit it.

And it prompted another question. One he said aloud, but could only be answered by himself.

"Was Maric truly that weak?"


	4. The Joining

**Prologue, Part Four**

**The Joining**

* * *

 

"Aedan."

"Yes?" The named Warden glanced over at Alistair.

"Back there…you said I was going to be leading the wardens at the hillside?"

"Only an amount of them ranging from four to eight. I will make sure they are all capable of acting on their own accord."

Alistair stopped walking. "…Do I need to be thankful that you didn't send me to the Tower of Ishal too?"

Cousland had walked slightly ahead, before stopping on the punctuation of Alistar's question.

"…We all have our roles to play, Alistair." He spoke without looking back.

"You're right, we do. A shame I don't get a say about what mine is, really."

Previously on the eve of the Fourth Battle at Ostagar, Cailan had sent both Alistair and Cousland to the Tower of Ishal instead of with the rest of the wardens.

Why? Perhaps he was simply a fool. Or perhaps, he knew somewhere beneath his confidence that there was a very real possibility of Ferelden losing its King in that battle, and that the most viable heir needed to live for the good of the Kingdom.

"It's a Teyrn's duty to protect his King." Aedan responded, making no attempt to hide it. Now that he had the power, he was sending Alistair away from the frontline for the same reason as before.

Alistair grit his teeth and made a grumble of agitation. And regretted it as soon as he heard himself do. Compared to his commander's ever-present aura of terror, he sounded downright childish by comparison. "Even if he doesn't want to be King…?"

"Especially if he doesn't want to be King." Cousland put his hands behind his back. "For he has no army, no court, and no council to remain at his side. If his most loyal vassal does not stand up for him during his self-exile, then who will?"

"You make it sound like those things will just pop up out of the ground if I said 'Yes, you're right, I'm King' right now." Alistair sighed. "Why me? Why not you, or Anora, or any one of the dozens of nobles in this camp that grew up learning how to tell people what to do? Fine, maybe we need a King. Why does it have to be me?"

Between the two, it was very obvious which one commanded obedience and respect. Between the two, it was very obvious which one would follow the other.

Cousland closed his eyes. "I have already told you why: You are Maric's Son. The moment Cailan died, you succeeded him under the natural law of Primogeniture. It is not a choice of mine, or yours. It simply is."

"And you really think that?"

"Of course I do."

"You never question it, even for a second? You never think 'Hey, this result of an indiscreet man and some star-struck maid should be in charge because the man was King, and the first child went off and died already' is completely ridiculous?"

Cousland kept his eyes closed and his composure still. "It is not ridiculous. You are King."

Alistair weakly grinned. "I don't believe you." He couldn't believe him. Aedan Cousland had an unrelenting stubbornness in the belief that he was right and everyone else wrong, and an hour long monologue about everything there was to argue.

If that's all he had to say, then he was almost surely hiding something.

"It is the truth. I never tell lies." Cousland replied with a fact he had said many times before.

"Yeah, you never lie…"

But sometimes he didn't tell the whole truth.

The Warden-Commander opened his eyes. "Do you really want to be on the frontline, Alistair? I will not stop you. I swore an oath to protect you no matter what path you take. I will serve you until the end no matter what happens, as will my descendants."

"You know, I really doubt that last part."

"Hm?" Cousland was a bit taken aback.

"Oh, nothing, Teyrn I'm-going-to-die-alone." Alistair self-whispered the last bit with a snicker.

Truth be told, he couldn't imagine Cousland having children.

A woman that was enough of a saint to put up with Aedan Cousland's… quirks, to put it kindly, would need to be sent a thank you letter on behalf of all of female kind for taking one for the team.

And what would a child of Aedan Cousland be like, anyway? A son would probably draw invasion plans for Orlais in the dirt and rule his local circle of childhood bullies with an iron fist. And if it was a daughter, she'd probably ask for a miniature guillotine on Satinalia so she could stage mock executions on her dolls.

"Forget it," Alistair continued. "I'm fine with guarding the bridge." He didn't know why Cousland was so insistent on serving him, but picking that eldritch mind of his could very well result in finding something which could not be unseen. Alistair chose to let the matter drop instead. "It's not that I really want to fight, it's just that…well…"

Alistair trailed off, unsure of how to word what he wanted to say.

"…Is this about something else? I will not anger at your words, feel free to speak them."

"It's just that…I've already lost Duncan, and I wasn't able to do anything about it. Now you want me to sit out the main fight again, and…" Alistair rubbed the back of his neck and avoided looking Cousland in the eye.

"What, are you worried about me?"

Alistair jerked his head to the side and looked away, a bit red in the face. "Say it out loud, why don't you…?"

Worrying about another man was hardly the manliest thing in the world. In adventure novels, the role was usually taken on by a beautiful woman that tearfully asked the main character to not die on the eve of the final battle. And it didn't help that Alistair had a reputation for being a sarcastic troublemaker back at the templar barracks, so earnestly admitting he was worried about Cousland was quite embarrassing for him.

"Do not worry." Cousland smiled. He had such a habit of looking evil when he did. "I do not die. I will be fine."

"You know, funny thing about dying, I hear most people don't sign up for it."

"Very well, how about this?" Aedan got down on one knee and placed a closed fist over his heart. "I, Aedan Cousland, promise you, Alistair Theirin, that I shall not die."

"Okay, okaayyyyyyy." Alistair rolled his eyes around the edge of the lids and suppressed a groan. "I believe you, you won't die. Stop doing that already."

"I am glad I could assuage your fear. I live to serve you, after all."

Alistair winced a little. How could someone say something so embarrassing like that with such a straight face…?

"…You know, if someone else overheard this whole thing, they might get the wrong idea…" Alistair pronounced 'idea' as 'idear', adding an 'r' sound at the end.

Cousland raised his eyebrows, a little confused. "Mm? And why do you say that?"

"Well, they might think we're...you know..."

"I do not understand. Please expand your diction."

"'Expand my dic-' oh, you know what I'm talking about. Two boys in the middle of the night talking about how worried they are about each other. What kind of awkward, weird thing do you think I'm thinking about?"

"Potential envy of our masculine camaraderie by ignorant bystanders?" Aedan Cousland guessed with all honesty.

"Shut up, genius." Alistair's eyes narrowed and his voice drolled. 

"Ah, fine." Cousland obeyed—in that way he never did for anyone else—and discontentedly folded his arms with his eyes closed and mind still in thought, still trying to solve what Alistair was getting at. 

For someone so serious, Aedan had a real bad habit of making it hard for Alistair to be the funny one.

"Besides," Alistair said. "We're not the only ones we need to worry about."

 

Carver stood apart from Adaar and the two warden-recruits equipped in full grey-and-blue warden armor.

He hadn't spoken much to either of the other recruits since meeting them, he only knew that one was named Landry and the other Shaevra, and that they had taken quite a liking to each other ever since they first met. As for the Qunari, he didn't seem to say much at all. Just a "come here" when it was time to follow him and a "good job" when they finished collecting the darkspawn blood.

Unbeknownst to Carver, a shadow stalked him atop one of the pillars of the old temple. An ominous shape of black akin to the illustration of an assassin or thief lurking in a dark corridor.

The shadow jumped, and aimed directly for its prey's upper back.

They landed squarely on him, and locked their arms around his neck.

"Too defenseless, little brother!" Hawke cackled maniacally. "I could've cut a hole in your cheek and made you swallow your own tongue!"

"Get—off—of me!" Carver jerked his body around trying to shake loose from Marian Hawke's grasp. Her laughter only multiplied at the attempt.

"What, am I embarrassing you in front of your new friends?" Hawke smirked rather viciously.

Carver stopped resisting, and looked over his shoulder at his elder sibling. "Couldn't you have just walked up to me and said 'hello' like a normal person?"

"I could've, but I wanted to annoy you." Hawke smiled and rested her chin on top of Carver's hair. She had a rather nice smile for someone with such a love for mischief.

Carver sighed and gave up. She had won this round.

Not that he had ever won against her to begin with.

"Big sister, do you have anything better to do that isn't trying to antagonize every living soul you come across?"

"Nope." Hawke winked. "And I don't do it to everyone. Just the stuck-up ones."

"The troll under the bridge." Carver looked forward with a stare as if he were focusing on something a thousand yards away. And in each one of those yards, a memory of living under his sister's shadow was in the way.

"Mmmm?" Hawke made a feminine sound of bemusement at her younger brother's sudden non sequitur.

"The story, you've heard it?"

"The one where three goats pass and the troll gets knocked off by the third one?"

"No, the one where the troll hounds them day and night shouting obscenities and insulting the goats' mother until all three of them go mad and jump off the bridge into death's sweet arms of their own free will."

"…Um, Carver, I don't think that story exis—"

"The point is, you are that troll right now."

"I'm a troll?" Hawke went innocently wide-eyed from her position on top of Carver's head.

"Yes, you are a troll."

"Thanks, I guess?" Hawke rolled her eyes up and pondered her new title. She had been called a number of things ever since she had become well-known around camp, but she didn't know what to make of 'troll'.

"Could you get off my shoulders now?"

"What, you don't want to help your beautiful big sis down?" Hawke sniffled. She was too good at pretending she was about to cry. "I'm hurt~"

"My unmarried, single, big sister..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Ignoring the fact that Hawke had just jumped twenty-some-odd feet just to land on him for fun, he lowered himself and let her off his back.

"Feeling nervous?" Hawke walked in front of him.

At the sight of her small stature, Carver was reminded of how much shorter she was in comparison to him or even other women. When they were younger, she would always pull him around by the hand, sometimes by coaxing him, othertimes yanking him to where she wanted him to be. It still felt odd to have to look down at her now instead of looking up.

"Of course not." Carver looked irritated at her asking.

Even if he was he wasn't going to admit it. Not in a million years.

"Really? You know if you're having second thoughts—"

"I'm a warden-recruit, sister. There is no turning back."

"Come now, little brother. It's not like you have an invisible knife being held to your throat. One word and I'll have you whisked away on a horse to Lothering in the next five minutes."

"That's just like you, you know that? Always trying to hide me behind your back and acting like all the world's honor and glory belongs to you."

"Oh, Carver. Always feeling like you need to get into a standoff with me and go off to and prove you're your own person, no matter what it means for the rest of us. You're so selfish, you're so selfish."

"I think it is fine that I'm a little selfish. I've spent my whole life trying not to stand out because of dad and B—"

A hand darted towards Carver's mouth and covered it up.

"It's really in bad taste to talk about private family matters in public, little brother." Hawke nodded her head back towards where Adaar and the two would-be Grey Wardens stood. They didn't seem to be paying attention, but they were still within earshot.

"…You're right, sorry." Carver sighed and shook his shoulders and head. "Walk with me, will you?" He gestured to the stairs down to the west.

Hawke understood, and followed him down.

She spoke at the base of the stairs. "You know, you had me a bit worried there. Thought by now you would've learned to never speak about it outside home."

"Hawke." Carver sharply turned and looked her right in the eye. He didn't need to speak to her in private about their family.

"We're both 'Hawke', Carver. Use my first name."

"Marian. Why have you been seen with the Commander of the Grey Wardens?"

Hawke folded her arms and rounded the edge of her eyes out of curiosity. "Well, that's a surprise. Worried that some bad man is going to steal your precious big sister away?"

Carver continued stare at her, unaffected by her teasing. Hawke sighed and went on—

"We both fight darkspawn in the wilds. Sometimes we have to work together. And like I said before, I like to annoy the stuck-up ones."

Though, in the context of Marian imagining the two standing side-by-side, Carver seemed to possess the most sparkling personality in the world by comparison. Perhaps she had to thank the Warden-Commander for making her appreciate her pain in the ass brother?

"Stay away from him."

"Oh, you are jealous!" Hawke place both her hands to her cheeks and acted overcome with emotion. "I think I feel warm and fuzzy on the inside~"

Carver didn't let up and kept his calm. This was her classic strategy against him: saying something to bait out an angry response so she didn't have to address her own problems.

"They say…things, about him. Around the camp." Carver looked away. "About what he did at Amaranthine. About what he did after he killed Arl Howe."

"Carver, they say things about me too. They're bored, the soldiers will say anything if it means passing the time. You don't honestly believe them, do you?"

"Just be safe for once, alright?"

"What? You think you can stand up to him and I can't?" Hawke leaned forward and put her hands on her hips. "Don't think just because you're bigger than me now that I still can't kick your butt, little brother. Trust me, I can handle whatever Aedan throws at me better than anyone else can. Or do I need to remind you of what I had to do for our family after father fell sick?"

Ever since the years leading up to Malcolm Hawke's passing, Marian had been the de facto head of the family. And one of the responsibilities was making sure there was always plenty of food on the table—and that every fat merchant passing through Lothering had a little less weight to carry around. As well as silencing a few Chasind raiders that had gotten too close to their family homestead.

"Carrverrrrrrr."

"What?"

"C'mere."

Hawke wrapped her arms around her brother and squeezed. Her arms were thin and looked delicate, but held so him tightly that he was almost convinced that she could still pick him up like she used to.

"I know it seems sometimes like all I ever want to do is rile you up, but I'm glad that you're worried about me, Carver. Thanks."

There was something odd about that soothing, soft voice of hers. It was usually so annoying to him, but the moment she showed a bit of compassion, it could stop every nerve in his body.

Carver raised an arm behind Hawke's back and looked at the back of his hand. He hadn't realized it until it had stopped, but his hands were shaking the entire time.

So he was afraid of The Joining, after all.

He groaned, in part because of Hawke, in part because of himself, and in part to hide it all; and hugged his older sister back.

"You don't have to worry about me either, sister. We're not kids anymore."

Hawke relaxed her arms and pulled away. "Of course I'm going to worry about you Carver. You're my little brother. Remember how you were afraid of storms when we were younger, and one night it was so bad that you had to ask if you could sleep in my bed with me?"

"In the name of Andraste, I beg you to erase that from your memory." Carver pleaded. He was seven-years-old at the time, it was not fair to bring that up.

Unfortunately, Hawke liked to fight dirty. "You clung to my back the entire night, whimpering until you tired yourself and passed out." She grinned victoriously. "You don't get to come back from that, sorry."

Her face suddenly became stern, and she continued—

"I'll say it again. We have connections to Loghain now. No one will come after you if you decide to turn back now."

Carver looked up at the night sky. "The Grey Wardens need recruits." Even though he knew he was afraid now, he didn't change his mind. "I have to do this. If I don't, someone else will."

Hawke smiled softly. "You're so selfish, you're so selfish." She didn't like it, but she had expected this answer all the same. "We should head back, before they start wondering why I kidnapped you."

She started climbing back up the stairs, leading with her brother in tow just as she always had.

"…If you ever feel afraid, just remember that I'll be right beside you the entire time."

"I'm guessing I don't have a choice whether or not you're there?"

"You're right. No choice." Hawke smiled, an open mouth, closed-eyed, pepped up expression. She could always turn her cheer on-and-off on demand, a talent that always seemed useful for throwing the moody and serious off-balance.

When they reached the top, Alistair Theirin and Aedan Cousland were in view, the silver chalice in the latter's hand.

"Ah, my little brother, a Grey Warden." Marian nudged Carver in the side. "Like that's going to save you from me. Go on now, Carver, go get this over with."

The brother and sister separated, Carver walking to join the other recruits and Hawke walking over to the group circle of three wardens that had formed around the chalice.

"Two-hundred thirty-four…four-hundred twelve…six-hundred fifty-five milliliters." Cousland held up each of the conical flasks that Adaar had laid out and eyeballed the sum of darkspawn blood in all three.

"How can you tell that just by looking at them?" Alistair curiously asked.

"I just take the total capacity of each flask and multiply it by the percentage filled. Very simple."

There were no markings or units of measurement on any of the flasks. Cousland, despite his personality, had a remarkably good eye for precision and small details. At least when it came to numbers and not people's feelings.

"Hello, everyone!" Hawke shouted as she stuck her head in between Adaar and Alistair, trying to get a peek at what the Warden-Commander was doing. "Good day for a Joining, isn't it?"

"It's night." Adaar stated, in that blank sort of manner that he always spoke in, when he actually bothered to speak.

"What do you want, woman?" Cousland asked, trying to ignore her as he emptied each of the three flasks of darkspawn blood into the chalice.

"Oh, I'm just wondering if watching a Joining makes me an honorary Grey Warden." Hawke bounced on her heels and grinned, curling a finger in front of her mouth.

"If you could honorarily pretend you died fighting darkspawn for just a few minutes, I will be more than happy to say that you are." Aedan Cousland closed his eyes to get Hawke out of his sight and pulled a vial thinner than his pointer finger from his clothes.

Alistair swallowed at the sight of it.

"What's that?" Hawke asked, a bit curious. Unlike the darkspawn blood he had just poured, which was called "black" but really was just a dark shade of red, this liquid was completely absent of hue.

"Archdemon blood." He held it up against the lighting of the moon. It did not shimmer or reflect light. It simply remained its own color in every environment. "Left over from Andoral."

He tipped the end of the vial over the chalice and tapped it gently with a finger. Only three drops fell into chalice, and yet those three were enough to turn the rest of the blood as dark as oil.

"Hey…" Hawke grimaced at the sight of the blood changing color. "…Do they really have to drink it like that? Can't you just make them drink a lot darkspawn blood instead?"

"That would simply make them ghouls. The Archdemon blood is what forces the recruit's body into acknowledging the blood as a foreign substance and engage in the fight for supremacy." Cousland answered.

The Darkspawn Taint in itself was rarely the cause of an immediate death. It instead slowly invaded the body, gradually making the Archdemon's Calling louder and louder each day until it eroded them into a husk. The Joining Ritual on the other hand had a very real risk of an immediate death—but if successful would allow a delay of their descent into insanity.

"Don't worry." Alistair forced a grin. "The good guys never die at the beginning."

"Worry this, worry that, everyone's talking about worrying tonight, aren't they?" Hawke puffed up one of her cheeks and poked her tongue against it. "I'm not exactly filled with confidence, here."

"Woman." Cousland looked at Hawke rather severely. "No one can stop the wrath of fate. Not you, not I, nor anyone but the Maker himself. If it is your brother's time to go to His side, then that is his fate to accept. Joinings are meant to be solemn events. Be quiet and let these three do what they have to do. They all made the choice to be here. It is not your place to try to stop them."

Hawke stared at Cousland a bit empty-headedly. She wanted to make a joke, but realized it would be in poor taste at this point.

She looked away, a little deflated. "Fine," she muttered. "Do whatever you want."

Marian Hawke walked away, and leaned against one of the pillars enclosing the temple ground.

She didn't know why, but she recalled a memory of herself trying to shoot a bow for the first time when she was a little girl.

She had pulled back the string without an arrow and let go, causing the bow to shatter and one of the wooden fragments to hit her in the face. It cut the thin layer of skin covering the bridge of her nose, causing a painless mess of blood to rush out of her face. When Carver saw he couldn't help but cry, afraid of what had happened to his older sister. Hawke, a confused child herself at the time; tried to calm him down by smearing the blood against her face in a line across her nose, like she was a barbarian with warpaint of her face, and frantically saying _"No, I'm just playing 'Avvar', see?!"_

That was first time she could remember drawing a stripe of blood across her face. Of course it also held the practical value of covering up the small scar that incident left behind.

She looked up at the nighttime sky and took in the air of Ostagar, the chill against her face taking her back into the present.

" _I'm just terrible at standing still and keeping to myself, aren't I?_ " She thought.

That's why she nettled people who clearly didn't want to talk to her. That's why she always got into everyone's business and couldn't fit into the serious, impersonal atmosphere that the Grey Wardens had—

She didn't like being alone.

Her hand fidgeted. Along with her daggers she had an empty bow equipped to the back of her drakeskin-and-dragonhide armor, but she really wished she had an arrow right now.

"At last, we come to The Joining." Cousland stepped forward with the Chalice in both hands.

Dressed in his black nobleman's attire and draped in his blue cloak, he looked as if he were a Revered Father in an Imperium Chantry, holding a chalice of Lyrium for the Magisters to drink from for some bastardized version of prayer.

"There are many legends as to why Grey Wardens came to drink Darkspawn blood." Cousland started with a story, as all three of the recruits knew what The Joining entailed already. "Some say it is a tradition which came from the Donarks, where the tribesmen drank their enemies' blood for power. Some say it was inspired by practicing blood mages in the Imperium, the very same which committed the Second Sin responsible for The Blight. And others say it came from the Elves that chose to forsake their promise of vengeance so that the races of Thedas would not be ground into something less than indignity."

"Whatever the inspiration, their reasons were clear. They chose to forsake their own lives because they realized that ending The Blight was something greater than they were. Are you ready to make that sacrifice, just as those who came before you did?"

All three recruits nodded their heads.

"We speak only a few words prior to The Joining, but these words have been said since the first. Alistair?"

"Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you."

"Step forward, Shaevra."

The warden-recruit didn't say anything. She simply did what she was told, placed her mouth at the chalice's edge, and let the darkspawn blood be tilted into her throat.

She didn't make any noise when she stood back up straight. Shaevra just stood still for a few seconds, slowly, carefully looked down at the ground—and then vomited blood through her helmet.

Alistair spoke, lowly, but just loud enough for everyone to hear what needed to be said—

"I am sorry, Shaevra."

She collapsed to the ground, dead.

Hawke looked over at Alistair. She had half-expected him to make some sort of quip like "Oh, it's always the first one that has to die, isn't it?" Instead, she saw him looking away and covering his eyes.

"Step forward, Landry." Cousland commanded once again.

The face behind the helmet of the one named Landry could not be seen. But in spite of whatever emotion he may have had, he stepped forward, and drank from the chalice.

He didn't last long either.

Landry's hand went for his chest almost immediately. He felt his heart fail to beat for the first time in his life, and fell with his eyes rolled back into his skull as he felt it for the last.

Alistair opened his mouth. An unintelligible noise came out of his mouth at first, before he pressed his feelings back down and spoke again—

"I am sorry, Landry."

"But The Joining is not yet complete." Cousland stepped over the bodies of the dead recruits. "You were called upon to submit yourself to the Taint, for the greater good. Step forward, Carver, and drink."

Carver's eyebrows knotted. He wanted to look back at his sister one last time, but fought the urge.

This was his choice in life. This—was his destiny.

He took the chalice from The Warden-Commander's hands, and drank.

Cousland waited until he was finished and took the chalice back into his hands. "From this moment forth, you are a Grey Warden."

And then, Carver's eyes went white.

He saw the Archdemon, first. He stood right in front of it, its nostril's breath apparent and his reflection plain in its eyes.

He fell on one knee and prostrated himself. He fell on another and used his arms to hold himself from becoming completely prone. They wobbled as if they were carrying five-hundred pounds.

He felt a sensation like beetles were crawling underneath the skin on the back of his neck. One of them crawled up to his ear and left it ringing with tinnitus.

He felt his breath get shallow, his lungs were crumpling like balled parchment. 

" _Not…yet!_ " He inhaled as sharply as he could to fill them back up. The feeling of air was like being stabbed in the throat. " _I shall not allow it._ "

Even though Carver felt himself get weaker, he refused to let his heart stop beating.

Carver's arms finally gave out. He landed chest first, and fell asleep on the spot.

At the sight of him ceasing to struggle, Hawke ran up alongside him. When she was close enough, she let her heart sink and time stretch on as she focused her ears.

It was faint, but she could hear him still breathing. Her heart returned to beating soundly.

She didn't really know what to say, so she spoke to him the same way she always had.

"Alright, Carver." She smiled like he was playing a game on her and stood up. "You're not fooling anyone, wakey-wakey."

Carver's body stopped hurting. At the sudden absence of pain he felt a sweet bliss roll over his body, as if he were back home sound in bed in Lothering.

It was next to a window, on the side of the house where the sun hit the white sheets and warmed him at the waist.

Then, there was a tingle.

And that tingle spread throughout his spine.

"Carver…?"

It was odd, he didn't feel anything below his neck, and it seemed like he couldn't move his arms or legs. But when he caught sight of his own hand, he saw that it was trembling uncontrollably.

He was convulsing uncontrollably. His entire body was.

But he didn't feel any of it. He didn't feel or control anything. He just knew it was happening.

He was writhing against the floor in seizure. He tried stopping himself, and nothing changed. He tried saying something, and nothing changed. He tried curling the smallest muscles in his fingers, and nothing changed.

And then, almost all at once, his head came to a stop. And so the rest of him did too.

"Hey…" Hawke spoke small. "Is this normal…? He was fine just a minute ago…what's wrong with him?"

Aedan approached Hawke and Carver. He squatted down, took one hand off the chalice, and placed two fingers at the side of Carver's throat.

Cousland waited five seconds. Then he pulled his hand away and stood back up. He looked over at Alistair, and in one moment of seeing Cousland's eyes—Alistair knew all he needed to say.

Alistair spoke—

"I am sorry, Carver."

Hawke looked at the Wardens bewildered. She felt like she had gone deaf for a moment, so she tried to get another answer. "…H…uh…?"

"It was close." Cousland half-clarified. "He's dead."

Hawke looked back at Carver. He was completely still and lying face down, like he was sleeping and waiting to wake up from a deep dream.

Marian carefully lowered herself onto her knees, sitting down next to her brother.

"Always going off and doing whatever you wanted to do…seriously…"

She smiled weakly, reprimanding him for his foolishness.

"Carver…you never listened to me…you always complained…and all we ever did was fight…" She shook her head. "…But…"

She felt her hands ball into fists.

"I never, ever, wanted to lose you!"

Hawke cried. She grabbed at her brother's head and cradled him in her lap—

"You're so selfish…you're so selfish…"

She sat there and embraced Carver as hard as she could. Trying to absorb what warmth she could from him before his body turned cold.

"The ritual is now complete." Cousland spoke indifferently, but looked directly at Hawke as he did. "This is the reality of the Joining." He drew himself closer to the kneeling Hawke, as if he were a predator closing in on wounded prey.

"Aedan, stop…" Alistair protested weakly. He didn't speak loudly enough for anyone to hear him.

"Tell me, woman—" He took a step closer to Hawke. His knees were a breath away from her face. "—is this what you wanted to see?"

Something in Hawke snapped.

She wasn't sure how she suddenly got herself on her feet so quickly in her state—but when she realized she was standing up, she saw that one of her arms were extended in front of her and that she had her dragonbone jambiya in her hand—its blade pressed against Cousland's throat.

And it was as soon as she took him hostage that Adaar's staff was drawn and ice-blue mana emanated from his hands.

"Put it down." Kaaras Adaar ordered Hawke. "Now." Most people would forget Adaar was even there, but that did not matter to him. Not as long as they knew it when it mattered.

"Why?!" Hawke ignored the threat to her own life and stared up at Cousland. She only came up to his chest. "Why did you let him die?!"

"This was your brother's choice." Cousland stared back down at her, unafraid and unfazed by her fury. "Honor it or reject it all you like—killing me will not bring the dead back to life."

"So what?" Hawke's eyes narrowed. "You've killed plenty of people, haven't you? You probably deserve it anyway."

"I probably do." Unaffected, Cousland actually agreed with her. The mantle of villain suited him just fine, and he wasn't going to repent over something as foolish as a spastic girl threatening him.

Hawke's logic left her, and she wondered if The Warden-Commander bled like the rest of them, or if that cutting his throat would yield naught but empty air.

"Hawke." For once, Aedan addressed her using her name.

Her eyes twitched at the sound of him speaking. All at once she began to believe this man was the monster everyone said he was.

"Do you have any other family waiting for you in Lothering?" He asked.

"...My mother…" She bit her tongue to stop herself from saying more.

"…Do you really want me to write her a letter telling her that she lost two children today?"

Hawke stood her ground and took in a deep breath. She shuddered when she exhaled. She thought out her options as best she could:

If she slashed Aedan's vitals and killed him in one blow, then she could probably beat Adaar as long as she remained on her feet after his first spell hit her. She doubted that Alistair, petrified as he currently was, would fight her, but if he did she might be able to beat both of them.

Killing a Teyrn, and a Warden-Commander at that, in cold blood would make her an outlaw in the eyes of the crown. She would need to escape from camp as soon as she was finished, ride out and reach Lothering before the sentries caught up with her. She would pack up with the rest of her family, and leave Ferelden for somewhere far outside Highever's reach.

There was no telling how many people would come after her, how she'd deal with the threat of foreign Templars to her family, and how many others she would need to deal with along the way.

Was she willing to put her life at risk for the sake of revenge; and was she willing to kill?

" _Come on, Hawke._ " She thought to herself. " _Don't do it. You're smarter than that._ "

Her outreached arm felt like it could not move, so she gripped it with her free one and softly pulled back, coaxing herself into retracting her arm.

She lowered her blade, and staggered back a few steps looking down at her feet.

Hawke continued holding onto her arm, shaking as if it were in pain.

" _Don't cry._ " She told herself. " _Don't give him the satisfaction. Don't cry._ "

At the sight of Hawke backing off, Kaaras Adaar put his staff back on his robes and stood down.

But as soon as he did, Hawke drew her arm back up.

She flicked her wrist, and threw her dragonbone jambiya forward.

It landed exactly where she wanted it to—in the chalice full of the darkspawn blood. It splashed, and stuck up hilt first from the cup, as if it had been stabbed into the ground.

She looked at Aedan one last time, him still unchanged. Was he not fast enough to react to her, or did he know that she would not harm him?

"Here, Warden!" She stood with one shoulder pointed forward. "Use this instead next time you want to recruit someone. It will go quicker."

She turned and left. At the fading of her armored footsteps against stone, the temple was filled with an absolute silence.

"All of them…" Alistair spoke, looking at the ground.

In Alistair's Joining, one other recruit had died.

In Aedan's, two had died.

And in this one, all three had died.

Alistair had wanted to stop trying at this point, but Cousland always insisted they keep holding new Joining Rituals.

Aedan didn't say anything back. He turned from the bodies and looked south towards the horizon.

They could barely be seen, but billowing black clouds were starting to form above the Wilds.

They could only mean one thing.


End file.
